Football’s biggest night is upon us, and while many would argue the primary concern is whether the Chiefs or the Eagles emerge victorious, some of us are looking forward to the game for other reasons: the snacks, the commercials, and the halftime show.
The one and only Rihanna will take the stage this year, which is interesting for a couple of reasons. Number one, she’s a stunning live performer who’s sure to bring unexpected surprises and certifiable bops to our TV screens. But second, she actually turned down the invitation to headline halftime back in 2019, when she explained she “couldn’t be a sellout” by performing for the NFL after its bad blood with Colin Kaepernick following his decision to kneel during the National Anthem in protest of racial injustice.
The intersection of sports and current events is actually a common theme among the greatest halftime shows in history, as you’ll see in the list below. While we wait to see what Rihanna has in store for us this weekend, join us in looking back at the 10 most spectacular performances we’ve been treated to on game day — and here’s hoping that this year’s show is so good, we have to add Rihanna to this rarefied group for the 2024 edition.
Elvis’s ex disputes the validity of her daughter’s final wishes.
Just weeks after the tragic death of Lisa Marie Presley, the will she left behind is being contested by her mother, who has cast doubt on whether the most recent version of the document was actually authorized by her late daughter.
Lisa Marie, 54, died on Jan. 12 following an incident of cardiac arrest. As the only child of music legend Elvis Presley, she controlled her father’s iconic Graceland property as well as a 15 percent stake in his estate. After Lisa Marie’s passing, it was announced that her will allocated those assets to her three daughters: 33-year-old Riley Keough, a successful actress who Lisa Marie had with her first husband, and 14-year-old twins Harper and Finley Lockwood, who were born during her fourth marriage. (She did have a fourth child, son Benjamin Keough, who died by suicide in 2020.)
Elvis, Priscilla, and Lisa Marie Presley enjoy happier times in 1968. (Photo by Magma Agency/WireImage/Getty Images)
But the instruction to pass Lisa Marie’s trust on to her daughters is now being disputed by Priscilla, Elvis’s only spouse, who was married to the King from 1967 to 1973. She’s questioning whether the most recent amendment was really the work of Lisa Marie — and following some public criticism over that speculation, Priscilla released a public statement explaining that her commitment to the truth is a reflection of her love for both her daughter and her ex-husband.
“I loved Elvis very much as he loved me. Lisa is a result of our love. For anyone to think anything differently would be a travesty of the family legacy and would be disrespectful of what Elvis left behind in his life,” Priscilla said. “Please allow us the time we need to work together and sort this out. Please ignore ‘the noise.’ As I have always been there for Elvis’ legacy, our family and the fans, I will continue to forge a pathway forward with respect, honesty, dignity, integrity and love.”
To better understand Priscilla’s argument about Lisa Marie’s will, let’s take a quick look back at what’s happened to Elvis’s estate over the last few decades, which is outlined in detail on Graceland’s official website.
When the “Can’t Help Falling in Love” crooner died in 1977, his father Vernon Presley became the executor and trustee of Elvis’s estate. Vernon was also listed as one of three beneficiaries; the other two were Elvis’s daughter and his grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley. By 1980, Lisa Marie was the only surviving heir, and Elvis’s will dictated that her inheritance would be held in trust until she turned 25.
That birthday came in 1993, and Lisa Marie created a new trust (called, fittingly, The Elvis Presley Trust) through which to manage the affairs of her father’s estate. Priscilla and the National Bank of Commerce were both listed as trustees. That held until 1998, when Priscilla “chose to redirect her efforts by moving to an advisory position, continuing her close involvement and support while focusing more time on her own ever-expanding individual pursuits as a successful actress and businessperson,” as the official Graceland history puts it. In 2005, Lisa Marie sold a majority of her shares of Elvis Presley Enterprises, the business entity affiliated with the trust.
Priscilla Presley speaks at the public memorial for Lisa Marie Presley at Graceland on January 22, 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for ABA)
Lisa Marie first wrote her will in 1993, then amended it in 2010. That will listed both Priscilla and Lisa Marie’s business manager Barry Siegel as co-trustees.
However, according to new court filings, Priscilla discovered after Lisa Marie’s death that a new amendment had been filed in 2016, which removed her mother and business manager from their trustee roles and replaced them with Lisa Marie’s children. The problem — according to Priscilla, at least — is that this latest document seems sketchy.
Among those complaints are what Priscilla calls “many issues surrounding the authenticity and validity” of the 2016 amendment. She claims she was never notified about the changes when Lisa Marie was alive, and that there was no witness or notarization of Lisa Marie’s signature, which the petition claims is “inconsistent” with her usual signature. Priscilla is hoping the court will invalidate this 2016 version and declare the 2010 amendment to be “the authoritative and controlling document.”
Friends of Lisa Marie, however, say that removing her mother and business manager from the agreement is exactly what she wanted. In fact, one source told PEOPLE that Lisa Marie “did not have a relationship” with Priscilla by the time she executed this final amendment to her will in 2016.
“Lisa lived her life authentically. … She wouldn’t remain quiet when she was being taken advantage of,” this friend told the magazine. “At the end of the day, these are her wishes, and there’s no question as to what her wishes were. No one’s going to be able to reinvent the last seven or eight years and say no, no, no.”
Some of the bad blood has been well documented. In 2018, Lisa Marie sued Barry Siegel, the business manager who was once a co-trustee along with Priscilla, claiming that her trust, once valued at $100 million, had been reduced to a mere $14,000 “through [Siegel’s] reckless and negligent mismanagement and self serving-ambition.”
So, why all the fuss now over a fortune that has since been squandered? Well, in this case, there’s plenty of opportunity for more money to be made in the future.
During a 2002 interview with our own Katie Couric, Priscilla admitted it was “a shock” to learn upon Elvis’s death that there wasn’t much money left — and the situation was so dire that Graceland was almost lost.
“[Elvis] was very extravagant,” Priscilla said. “He spent everything, really, that he had. He splurged. It’s as simple as that.”
But in a stroke of business genius, Priscilla opened Graceland to tourists in 1982, welcoming enormous crowds each day who wanted to honor their fallen idol — and pay for the privilege. These visits were pulling in a reported $15 million per year by the time Priscilla spoke with Katie, and the property continues to be a popular destination in Memphis.
But the friends of Lisa Marie who spoke to PEOPLE say Priscilla’s removal from the trust was fair and legal — and that it sets up Lisa Marie’s older daughter Riley to take care of her younger siblings.
“There’s substantial documentation that basically Lisa was the only trustee,” the inside source said. “Priscilla did not participate in anything, as [Siegel also] hadn’t for years before. … At the end of the day, a trustee is supposed to have limited power — they’re supposed to not be able to do anything bad or stupid. No one can argue that Riley being the trustee is going to not be to the benefit of the twins.”
It’s likely we’ll continue to hear a whole lot about this famous family, and not just from this legal dispute. Actor Austin Butler was nominated for an Oscar this year for his portrayal of Elvis in the biopic helmed by Baz Luhrmann, and director Sofia Coppola is currently prepping a film about Priscilla.
China News Agency, December 20 (Xinhua) According to Russian media, on the 20th, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that President Putin himself would make an annual summary, and he would have many contacts with his colleagues, pointing out that the main summary of this year was “finally clear who can’t be trusted”.
Lavrov said to reporters: “The main conclusion is that the situation has finally and irreversibly demonstrated what is happening in the world, who is trying to act with what intentions and plans on the international stage, who is negotiable, and who is no longer trusted.”
He also pointed out that most countries in the world do not support the dominance of the United States and its allies on the world stage, which nobody likes.
Putin once said that the situation in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporoge is extremely serious. The security institutions in these “new regions” of Russia should make every effort to ensure the safety of citizens and safeguard their rights and freedoms to the greatest extent.
Putin called for strengthening the work of security agencies in key areas in the event of new threats, and instructed special forces to continuously control strategic transportation targets and energy infrastructure and other places. Putin said: “The counter intelligence agencies, including the military, now need to maintain maximum calm and concentration. It is necessary to severely suppress the actions of foreign special forces and quickly identify traitors, spies and saboteurs.”
In addition, according to the spokesman of Russian President Peskov told the “News” that after the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a statement on the Minsk Agreement, Russia has every reason to stop believing the words of European politicians. Merkel earlier talked about the Minsk Agreement in an interview with the German magazine Time. She pointed out that “the Minsk agreement in 2014 is an attempt to give Ukraine time”. Merkel added that she believed that the issue of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO discussed in 2008 was a mistake.
President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting at the Summit of the Americas on Thursday. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press/AP)
Ahead of the House select committee’s Jan. 6 hearing, President Biden said many Americans will be “seeing for the first time” details that occurred during the insurrection at the Capitol.
The President said the actions taken on that day were a “flagrant violation of the Constitution” and that the committee’s hearing is going to “occupy” the country.
“I think it was a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution. I think these guys and women broke the law — tried to turn around a result of an election and there’s a lot of questions, who’s responsible, who’s involved,” Biden said in Los Angeles at the beginning of a bilateral with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Nick Quested will testify during the Jan. 6 House select committee hearing about his experience filming members of the Proud Boys during the riot at the Capitol. (Mike Pont/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)
The Jan. 6 House select committee says its hearing tonight will include testimony from two witnesses who interacted directly with the Proud Boys during the riot at the Capitol.
The panel announced earlier this week that it will call documentarian Nick Quested to testify about his experience filming members of the Proud Boys in the week leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021, and Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was injured after she was part of an altercation involving members of the Proud Boys while defending the US Capitol.
Quested has already been deposed by the committee and Justice Department officials about his experience and has provided the committee and the department with video footage from the filming of his documentary.
He was embedded with the Proud Boys for a significant period of time leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, and is considered a firsthand fact witness because of the amount of time he spent with the group.
Some background: Leaders of the Proud Boys were involved in some of the early clashes that overpowered police lines and breached the Capitol. The group has been a focus of the Justice Department for months, and on Monday the agency charged the head of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, and four other leaders with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.
These are the most aggressive charges brought by the Justice Department against the Proud Boys, and the first allegations by prosecutors that the group tried to forcibly oppose the presidential transfer of power.
Tarrio and his co-defendants previously pleaded not guilty to an earlier slate of charges.
US Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House select committee, testifies before the House Rules Committee in April. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP/File)
The “heart” of the hearing will be Rep Liz Cheney’s opening remarks – which are written like the opening statement of a trial.
She will lay out step by step what happened on Jan. 6 and to do that she will use clips from closed-door testimony that the committee has gathered since it was formed almost a year ago.
What to watch: Expect those clips to include Donald Trump’s family members but also other people in and around the former President. This is all about connecting the dots in a way that paints a picture – and Cheney will be crucial in doing that tonight.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the Invictus Games in The Hague, Netherlands, in April. (Karwai Tang/WireImage/Getty Images)
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will attend the Queen’s birthday parade on Thursday, a spokesperson for the couple have told CNN.
Harry and Meghan, who have flown back with their two children from their home in California for the 70th anniversary of the monarch’s accession to the throne, will meet members of the royal family to watch the event together at Horse Guards Parade.
The royal procession will start at Buckingham Palace and move down The Mall to Horse Guards Parade, joined by members of the royal family on horseback and in carriages.
More than 1,200 officers from the Queen’s personal troops, the Household Division, and hundreds of Army musicians will come together for the parade. The “colour” — or regimental flag — will be trooped by the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards.
Prince Charles will take the salute at Horse Guards Parade on the Queen’s behalf, alongside Prince William and Princess Anne.
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, the Earl and Countess of Wessex and their children, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence (Princess Anne’s husband) are expected to travel to Horse Guards Parade in carriages, where they will join other members of the royal family including the Sussexes to watch the parade from the Major General’s Office which overlooks the parade ground.
Once the procession has returned up The Mall, the Queen will take a salute from the Buckingham Palace balcony.
She will return to the balcony to watch the event’s conclusion — a flypast by the Royal Air Force over the palace. For that appearance, the Queen has decided that only royals carrying out official duties will join her.
Portraits of Queen Elizabeth are displayed in front of the British Ambassador’s Residence to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee in Paris, on June 1. (Edward Berthelot/Getty Images)
The Queen’s historic reign is going to be commemorated in countries around the world, with Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) spearheading a host of international events.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron will lead a ceremony of thanksgiving and recognition to the Queen at the Arc de Triomphe on Thursday, supported by a band from the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
On Saturday, the Red Arrows will stage a flypast at Le Touquet-Paris-Plage on the northern coast at the English Channel, while the British Embassy in Paris is exhibiting a collection of portraits measuring almost 10 feet tall of the Queen at the Ambassador’s residence, including a 1953 Cecil Beaton Coronation portrait and a David Bailey portrait from 2014.
British Embassy staff in Switzerland have been working with famous light artist Gerry Hofsetter to project a Platinum Jubilee display onto four Bernese Alps mountains, including the 13,015 feet high Eiger.
Beacons will be lit in the Commonwealth capital cities — 54 in total. The event in Wellington, New Zealand, will start at the steps to the Tangi Te Keo Mount Victoria lookout with a Maori prayer known as “karakia.” Then, indigenous peoples — mana whenua — will ignite a torch from a beacon and ascend to the lookout, according to the New Zealand Defence Force.
The beacons in the Commonwealth countries and United Kingdom Overseas Territories will be lit at 9.15 p.m. local time. Pitcairn Island, the smallest British overseas territory with just 35 inhabitants in the Pacific, will stage a jubilee dinner tonight and will be the final place to light a beacon, being nine hours behind the UK.
Fire engines in Valparaíso and Santiago in Chile will be branded with the Platinum Jubilee emblem, while the British Embassy in Santiago will host its first ever street party to mark the occasion.
FCDO staff based in the US will host a series of celebratory events in Washington, New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
British ambassadors and high commissioners around the world have nominated 70 of their favorite recipes to a special Platinum Jubilee cookbook, including many dishes served to the Queen on overseas visits.
In a statement issued by the FCDO, foreign secretary Liz Truss said: “In an ever changing and uncertain world, the Queen has been a rock who has offered wise counsel to over 170 Heads of State and dedicated her life to promoting unity and social freedom.
“Her remarkable service to the UK and the Commonwealth is rightly being recognised across the globe, during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, as she continues to touch the lives of millions of people beyond our shores.”
The war in Ukraine could soon enter a new, even more dangerous phase.
Russia, angry over the loss of its Black Sea Fleet flagship, has warned of “unpredictable consequences” if the US continues supplying weapons to Ukraine, while Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky struck a somber note telling CNN the world should be prepared for the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use tactical nuclear weapons.
The sinking of the guided-missile cruiser Moskva on Thursday is the biggest wartime loss of a naval ship in 40 years — and a huge embarrassment for Russia.
It comes at a time when US intelligence officials are warning about Putin’s increasingly unpredictable behavior and willingness to take risks due to his anger over Russia’s failures in Ukraine.
While Moscow has denied the Ukrainian version of events — that the Moskva sunk after being struck by Ukrainian missiles — it was nevertheless forced to admit the ship went down.
Russia has insisted the reason for the sinking was a fire, but the US on Friday confirmed Ukraine’s account, with a senior defense official saying that the US believes that two Ukrainian Neptune missiles hit the Russian warship.
As the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Moskva was one of its most visible assets in the Ukraine war and its loss could impact the morale of Russian troops. Tellingly, the Russian government has not acknowledged casualties in the sinking of the ship, a marked contrast to the very public discussion birdies shoes about the Kursk submarine disaster, which claimed the lives of 118 sailors in 2000.
Russia may have extinguished independent media, but the loss of the Moskva has likely made Putin even more furious about the situation in Ukraine. US officials believe Putin is angry over the failures of his troops in Ukraine. They believe Putin’s advisers have not been telling him the full truth and did not prepare him for potential setbacks.
The warship fiasco comes just weeks after top Russian military officials announced a shift in the focus of the invasion after their offensive appeared to have stalled around major Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv and Kharkiv. Russia has also failed to achieve complete air superiority in Ukraine and has suffered heavy losses of personnel since the start of the invasion.
Russia was quick to strike back.
Ukraine’s Operational Command South said in a statement early Saturday that the situation in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv and Kherson regions was “increasingly hostile.”
“Desperately trying to gain a foothold and hold on to the positions of the southern front, the world’s most shameful army is pursuing civilians in Mykolayiv and Kherson regions. The work of snipers has been recorded in some areas.”
The statement said Russian forces were “enraged by the losses in the Black Sea” and had “intensified the missile threat” in the region.
Natalia Humeniuk, the spokeswoman for the armed forces in southern Ukraine, said that the missile attacks since Thursday night were in retaliation for the Moskva sinking.
“We all realize that we will not be forgiven,” she said, accusing Russia of using “cluster munitions prohibited by international conventions.”
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has previously said it had received credible allegations that Russian armed forces have used cluster munitions in populated areas in Ukraine. The nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also confirmed Russia’s use of cluster munitions throughout the conflict.
Zelensky has on Friday praised the Ukrainian armed forces for repelling Russian attacks, saying they were “doing it brilliantly.”
Zelensky has also praised the help Ukraine was red wing shoes getting from western countries, but has asked for more weapons to be shipped to the country. “The more and the sooner we get all the weapons we have requested, the stronger our position will be and the sooner peace will come,” he said.
More weapons for Ukraine
In another sign that the war in Ukraine is not going the way Russia has planned, Moscow has formally protested America’s ongoing shipment of weapons to Ukraine. It sent a diplomatic note to the State Department warning of “unpredictable consequences” should the support continue, according to two US officials and another source familiar with the document.
Some Biden administration officials believe that the diplomatic note shows the Russians are hurting, one official said. The official explained that they believe the Russians would not have sent that message if they felt they were in a strong place on the battlefield.
The note, known as a demarche, was sent earlier this week as the US administration was preparing to announce that it would be sending a new military aid package worth $800 million to the Ukrainians. The EU has also approved an additional 500 million euros for military equipment for Ukraine.
For the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US is providing Kyiv with high-power capabilities that some Biden administration officials viewed as too much of an escalation risk a few short weeks ago.
These include Mi-17 helicopters, 18 155 mm Howitzers and 300 more Switchblade drones. These types of weapons are designed for the type of fighting that’s likely to take place in the Donbas region — open terrain rather than urban and wooded areas.
The US is also shipping 40,000 artillery rounds, but that amount could be expended within several days if fighting in the east grows heavier. During previous battles, Ukrainian forces fired thousands of artillery rounds in a day, a US official said Saturday.
There are growing concerns about the need to get more ammunition, in particular artillery ammunition, to Ukrainian forces more rapidly, a US official said.
The Ukrainian military and regional officials have said Russian attacks have intensified in Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the east of the country as they prepare for a major ground offensive there.
Going forward, US officials believe the likely Russia strategy is to move weapons and troops into eastern Ukraine from their current positions just north and then encircle and cut off Ukraine forces that are there, the official said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and General Mark Milley are thorogood boots conducting daily phone calls with counterparts in the region to encourage them to ship more weapons and supplies to Ukraine as soon as possible.
Serhii Haidai, head of the Luhansk region military administration, has warned civilians who remain in Luhansk to leave the area. “It is extremely dangerous to stay in the cities now. The shelling intensified,” he said.
The Ukrainian armed forces General Staff said that “the main focus of the Russian enemy is on the regrouping and strengthening of troops” around Slobozhansky, an area that is a short distance south of Kharkiv.
In the same area, according to the General Staff, Russian forces have concentrated up to 22 battalion tactical groups around Izium. A battalion tactical group normally comprises about 1,000 troops.
Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina says she will donate all the prize money she wins at the Monterrey Open to the Ukrainian army.
The world No. 15, wearing the yellow and blue of Ukraine, defeated Russia’s Anastasia Potapova — who was not competing under the Russian flag following new sanctions from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) — 6-2 6-1 to reach the second swarovski jewelry round in Mexico.
Svitolina had originally said she would not compete on the WTA Tour against players from Russia or Belarus competing under their respective flags following the invasion of Ukraine but reversed her decision after Tuesday’s joint ruling from the ITF, WTA and ATP.
“It’s a very, very special event this one for me. All the prize money that I’m going to earn here is going to the Ukrainian army,” she said in her on court interview. “So thank you so much for your support.
“In general, I was just focused,” she added. “I was on a mission for my country.”
Svitolina, the No. 1 seed in Monterrey and its 2020 champion, will face Bulgarian qualifier Viktoriya Tomova in the second round.
“It’s a very special atmosphere each time that I play here and especially today it’s a very special match for me and moment,” she said.
“I’m in a very sad mood, but I’m happy that I’m here playing tennis — it’s nice to play in front of you, thank you.”
READ: Worried for her parents, Elina Svitolina says she has been suffering sleepless nights
In the Lyon Open, fellow Ukrainian tennis player Dayana Yastremska sank to her knees after beating Romania’s Ana Bogdan 3-6 7-6 7-6 in what she called “the hardest match of my life.”
The 21-year-old, who saved red wing shoes two match points in the three-hour epic, fled Ukraine by boat last week after spending two nights sheltering in an underground car park with her younger sister.
Yastremska traveled to Romania and then Lyon, where she had a wildcard for the tournament.
“I’m happy that I won for my country, but at the same time, I’m very sad,” she said in her on court interview, the Ukrainian flag draped over her shoulders. “My heart stays at home and my mind is fighting here, so it’s very difficult to find the concentration, to find the balance.
“This win, compared to what’s going on in my country, is nothing, but I’m happy. At least, I’m also fighting for my country. I’m really proud of the Ukrainians and they are really heroes. I hope everything is going to finish soon.”
