The Canadian PM responds firmly as the president proposes a “wonderful marriage” of incorporating Canada into the US.
Day: May 6, 2025
Star defense attorney Joe Tacopina has represented a US president, a baseball legend and an iconic pop star — but he turned down Sean “Diddy” Combs when the rapper came calling.
The Brooklyn-born legal eagle, fresh off getting A$AP Rocky acquitted on gun charges, informed Combs last month that the timing of the blockbuster case didn’t work for him.
“I think he has a defensible case,” Tacopina told The Post.
He also dismissed speculation that his decision was influenced by his close ties to Jay-Z and Roc Nation, calling such rumors “misconstrued.”
Jury selection in Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial continued on Tuesday in Manhattan, with opening arguments scheduled to begin Monday.
Combs is alleged to have used his wealth and influence to recruit, exploit, and abuse women, often coercing them into sexual acts through threats, manipulation, or force between 2004 and 2024.
He has pleaded not guilty and hired a high-powered legal team that includes Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos, Brian Steel, Alexandra Shapiro, Xavier Donaldson, Jason Driscoll, Anna Estevao and reportedly Mark Geragos.
When asked about the merits of the government’s case against Diddy, Tacopina sounded skeptical.
“The entire case, I tell you, rises and falls on consent. It’s really that simple,” Tacopina said.
“I believe the defense has ample evidence of consent, including rare communications that contradict the allegations. That’s my view.”
According to Tacopina, federal prosecutors are using the RICO statute, which was originally created to bring down organized crime figures, in order to indict Diddy “for having parties.”
Tacopina said that the charges were brought against Diddy so that federal prosecutors could “get their names in the paper” given that the rapper is a “big target.”
“I do think he’s getting a raw deal,” Tacopina added.
It’s no wonder that Diddy sought Tacopina’s services. The Brooklyn native is fresh off of one of his biggest triumphs — the acquittal of A$AP Rocky, who faced more than 20 years in prison on weapons charges.
Tacopina still remembers the surreal moment Rihanna embraced him in the middle of a Los Angeles courtroom just after her partner and the father of their child was found not guilty.
As she wept tears of relief, she wrapped her arms around Tacopina, buried her face into his designer suit, and whispered, “You saved my family.”
It was an emotional climax to a hard-fought legal battle, but for Tacopina — who takes pride in his meticulously tailored Italian suits—there was one drawback.
“She’s crying on my lapel,” he recalled with a chuckle. “When she pulled back, I saw the entire Fenty color palette on my jacket.”
Jokingly, he told her she owed him a new suit.
“Joe, I’ll get you 10,” she replied.
Tacopina told The Post that he may hang the the tear-stained lapel in his office as a memento.
It’s just another chapter in the career of the Brownsville native who has built a reputation as one of the nation’s most fearless and in-demand defense attorneys.
Known for his fiery courtroom presence and unapologetic style, Tacopina commands as much as $2,000 an hour—and his client list reads like a celebrity power index.
Over the years, he’s represented everyone from Michael Jackson and Meek Mill to Alex Rodriguez and the Washington Commanders.
Tacopina’s name drew headlines again when he successfully defended former President Donald Trump in a civil lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll.
In a rare courtroom win for Trump, Tacopina convinced the jury that his client was not liable for rape, a significant legal and political moment.
A federal jury, however, did find Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, awarding her over $88 million in total damages across two trials.
Tacopina announced that he is currently representing rapper Fat Joe in a high-profile defamation and extortion case. He also recently joined the legal team of former TV host Wendy Williams as she fights to regain control over her life from a court-appointed guardian.
His path to the courtroom wasn’t a straight one.
Tacopina initially set his sights on a career in professional hockey, playing briefly in the New York Islanders’ farm system.
But a debate class at Skidmore College changed everything. A professor noted his gift for argument and urged him to consider law school.
Inspired, Tacopina read “Fatal Vision,” a true crime book that confirmed his calling. “It was the most fascinating thing ever,” he said. “This is what I want to do.”
Now with over 120 trials under his belt, Tacopina credits his toughness and confidence to growing up in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood. “I truly do not possess a fear gene,” he said. A tattoo on his forearm reads: “I’m from the ’ville… Never ran, never will.”
For Tacopina, each case is more than a job—it’s a battle.
And whether he’s facing a federal jury or wiping makeup from a courtroom suit, he shows no signs of slowing down.
A Reddit user was irked when a friend of his girlfriend asked if she could come over to their place “just to use our kitchen.”
“I barely know her, and it’s not like it’s an emergency,” user “Pikachu930” wrote recently on a Reddit forum.
“But what made it even weirder is that my girlfriend told me we should feel honored that her friend asked us instead of someone else. That rubbed me the wrong way – it felt kind of entitled, like we’re supposed to say yes out of flattery?”
The friend also lives in a dorm and has a meal plan, said the Reddit writer.
“It’s not like she doesn’t have options,” he wrote. “She just suddenly wanted to cook something and decided her dorm kitchen was too gross.”
What also bothered the person on Reddit was that “this wasn’t a social request at all.”
“It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, want to cook together sometime?’ or ‘Could we hang out and cook?’” Pikachu930 wrote.
“It was literally, ‘Can I use your kitchen to cook my own food?’ That’s it. No invitation to connect or spend time together – just a one-way request to use our space.”
The man shared that he uses the kitchen “99% of the time.”
“I do almost all the cooking and the dishes, so it feels like my personal space in the house,” he continued.
“It’s not just a shared utility room to me. It’s where I do something I actually enjoy and take care of both of us. So letting someone else use it, especially someone I don’t know well, isn’t something I’m automatically cool with.”
His girlfriend, however, told him he was “overreacting and being rude about her friend.”
He wondered if he was being overly sensitive about it, adding that he would have been OK with it if it were a one-time request. Yet the friend wanted to use the kitchen “for a whole week, including sharing our refrigerator space,” to cook foods like chicken breast and avocado toast.
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Most users on the platform seemed to side with Pikachu930 — writing that he was “not the a–hole” for not wanting to share the kitchen with a stranger for a week.
“The so-called friend needs to bite the bullet and clean her own kitchen,” one user wrote.
“Absolutely not,” said another person. “She can batch-cook the chicken in an hour, she can make avocado freaking toast in her dorm kitchen — that’s absurd. This is a ridiculous request that makes no sense at all. Say no.”
However, another user wrote that it seemed like “a pretty normal request.”
“Dorm kitchens are terrible for people who actually enjoy cooking,” said the commenter. “It does seem a little weird that your gf said you should be ‘honored.’ Is this girl a really excellent cook or is this a compliment paid to your kitchen?”
The same commenter also pointed out that the choice is ultimately his.
“This is probably just someone who enjoys cooking as an outlet and really misses it since moving into a dorm,” the person stated.
“Assuming she’s respectful of the space and cleans up after herself, it would be kind to let her use your kitchen. But you would not be an a–hole if you declined to invite her into your space.”
Diane Gottsman, an etiquette expert and founder of the Protocol School of Texas in San Antonio, agreed with that last sentiment.
“Offering a part of your house, whether it’s the kitchen or a spare bedroom, is a courtesy and a kindness when it’s temporary,” she told Fox News Digital.
“Using someone’s kitchen over and over again, without offering to compensate in any way, is simply rude. It’s taking advantage of the friendship. At the very least, this person should offer some sort of compensation, either financially or by taking them out to eat occasionally.”
Gottsman recommended that the girlfriend “set some guidelines and boundaries.”
“You don’t have to go into big detail about why you don’t want this other person to inconvenience you. It’s obvious,” Gottsman said.
She suggested that the ask is “stretching the friendship – and it’s also straining her relationship with her boyfriend.”
“I would also add that it’s a big ask for a friend to borrow another friend’s kitchen over a period of time without offering some type of kindness in return,” Gottsman said.
“It would not be inappropriate to feel taken advantage of, and for the sake of the friendship, boundaries must be put into place.”
Published
May 6, 2025, 2:45 p.m. ET
In the new ABC News Studios docuseries Murder Has Two Faces, hosted by Robin Roberts, each episode takes a look at a not-very-well-publicized murder case that was eerily similar to one that got a tremendous amount of publicity and news coverage within a few months or a couple of years. The publicized cases were ones we couldn’t avoid, like the disappearances of Laci Peterson and Chandra Levy, but the fact that they were similar to cases that happened a few months or a couple of years earlier was less publicized.
MURDER HAS TWO FACES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay. Then we see Robin Roberts walking along the bay, talking to Mayra Escobar, best friend of Evelyn Hernandez.
The Gist: In the first episode, the May, 2002 disappearance of Evelyn Hernandez, just days before she was due to give birth, as well as her 5-year-old son Alex, is examined. The famous case that it is similar to is the disappearance of Laci Peterson in December of the same year. Both women were pregnant, and both women’s bodies were found in the bay months after their disappearances. In the case of Peterson, her unborn son was found nearby; Hernandez’s baby was never found, and Alex is also still considered missing.
Hernandez’s case only got publicity via a concerted effort by her friends and family to get the word out about her being missing. Of course, we all know about Peterson’s case; over 20 years later, there are still docuseries being made about the explosive case, especially with regards to her husband Scott Peterson, who is currently serving a life sentence for her murder. When Laci disappeared, though, Hernandez’s case bubbled back up in the media because of the two cases’ similarities.
The second episode examines the disappearance and death of Joyce Chiang, who vanished after leaving her Washington, DC apartment in January, 1999. When Chandra Levy disappeared two-and-a-half years later, in May 2001, the similarities to Chiang case were publicized, to the point that there was speculation that there was a serial killer in DC. The problem was, according to Chiang’s brother Roger, when Joyce initially disappeared, the case didn’t get nearly the media or police attention Levy’s case did. The third episode compares the Tagged Killer to the more notorious Craigslist Killer.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Murder Has Two Faces pretty much has the same feel as ABC News’ signature true crime newsmagazine, 20/20.
Our Take:
The first two episodes of Murder Has Two Faces don’t hesitate to examine the reasons why Hernandez’ and Chiang’s cases didn’t get nearly the amount of media attention that Peterson’s and Levy’s cases got. The episodes pay more than just lip service to the idea that the news media of the time was fascinated with cases involving the disappearances and/or deaths of young, pretty white women, and the coverage of cases involving women of color was lacking.
One of the experts interviewed in the first episode even calls the phenomenon out for what it is, saying it’s “missing white woman syndrome.” Laci Peterson was looked at as “innocent” and “in need of our protection,” while Hernandez was looked at as engaging in risky behavior that contributed to her fate. It didn’t help that Scott Peterson was out front with the press as the investigation into his wife’s death progressed, while the person of interest in Hernandez’s case, her boyfriend Herman Aguilera (who was never arrested; in fact, Hernandez’s case is still unsolved) never spoke to the media.
Roberts’ presence in the series is interesting, as she’s seen interviewing one key person in each case. In the first two episodes, it’s Hernandez’s friend Mayra Escobar; in the second episode, it’s Roger Chiang. She does her usual good job of connecting with her interviewee and empathizing with them while still asking thought-provoking, probing questions.
But she’s not in the rest of the documentary; all of the other interviews are done by the director, Lisa Cortes, or one of the other journalists who worked on each episode. In the “olden days” of true-crime docuseries, the presence of Roberts may have been needed to legitimize or bring attention to these stories, but in this modern era, where interviews are done by off-camera producers, seeing a star journalist on-camera feels weirdly old fashioned.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Escobar tells Roberts that “we want them home,” referring to Evelyn’s sons Alex and Fernando (the name given to the son that she was due to give birth to when she disappeared).
Sleeper Star: Amara Cofer, one of the experts interviewed in the first two episodes, had a really good perspective on just why coverage for the respective cases profiled was so different.
Most Pilot-y Line: Aside from the strange lack of Robin Roberts besides the one interview in each episode, we didn’t find anything.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Murder Has Two Faces succeeds in giving attention to cold cases that should have gotten more media and law enforcement attention when they initially happened, especially given how similar cases that happened in the same timeframe were covered.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
Forensic analysis of Doug Mills’ image of a bullet flying past Trump’s head during the July 2024 assassination attempt https://t.co/anrQ7GxrSC
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) May 6, 2025
Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to reinstate his ban on trans military service, after a lower court blocked it.
Donald Trump said the Houthis ‘don’t want to fight anymore’, following air raids by the US, Israel and the UK
Chris Simms had already tipped off the social team at NBC and Pro Football Talk with the potential scoop.
A recent phone call with his father had him expecting his father would make good on his comments that he would be open to letting Abdul Carter wear his retired No. 11 jersey.
Then came a call from his sister, Deirdre, whom he told he would be fine with his father doing so.
Wrong response.
“(She said) ‘I thought you were going to be on my side, how dare you. Forget it, I don’t want to talk to you and we’re hanging up,” Chris said on “PFT Live with Mike Florio” on Monday.
“That’s when I knew, uh-oh, mom and sister have gotten involved here. And mom and sister have one more vote than me and brother (Matt), and I don’t know where my brother stands on this.”
Phil asked if his son could help change his mother’s and sister’s vote, but ultimately, the Simms women won the battle, and No. 11 will remain in the rafters at MetLife Stadium.
Carter, after being turned down by Lawrence Taylor and now Simms, will continue his quest to find his jersey number for his rookie season.
“I knew they threw a fit. I think it’s going to the point where literally there was like, they were shedding tears. I’m not trying to embarrass my mom or my sister, but that’s how important it was to them,” Chris said. “And on top of that, the blowback off of that and the amount of people that came to my dad, ‘Don’t give your number up, don’t do that,’ I think he was a little taken aback by that. Ultimately, he’s not going to do it, he got outvoted by his family, specifically his daughter and his wife, but that’s where it stands right now.”
The Simms-Carter saga began when Phil mentioned on FanDuel TV that he thought it would be fine if he gave Carter his No. 11 jersey, and he would have no problem with doing so.
Carter wore No. 11 while starring at Penn State.
Chris said he told his father he would have no problem with him doing so, but advised him to call Taylor first to ensure they didn’t have separate reactions that could lead to controversy.
Taylor exclusively told The Post he wanted Carter to make history with his own number.
Carter’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, had reached out to Chris’ co-host, Mike Florio, to get Phil’s number so the defensive agent could call the ex-quarterback, and Giants general manager Joe Schoen had also reached out to the Giants legend regarding the matter.
Phil’s wife and daughter, though, weren’t having it.
“My dad’s texting me going, ‘Your mom and your sister they are just killing me. I don’t know if I can do it ‘They’re killing me,’” Chris said. “I’m like, ‘It’s your number, Dad. You got to do what you want.’
“(He said), ‘I need your help, try to change your sister’s mind,’ that’s what he texts me.”
He added, “I don’t think he was expecting the blowback from my mom and my sister and the rest of the family to the point of which he got here, and that made him change that.”
Chris said he does not know which way his brother would have voted, but suspects he may have aligned with his mother and sister.
However, even if Matt had sided with his brother, Chris said those two votes didn’t carry the same weight as the other two votes.
He said he only learned about his father passing on un-retiring the number after being sent a tweet.
“He knows the wrath of not listening to them, and how long that can go. Especially with my sister,” Chris said of his mother and sister. “My sister is ruthless, like ruthless. My sister is the kind of girl, and she’s all love, she loves football, she loves the Giants too. If you go to the Giants game with her and she seems somebody with like an Eli Manning jersey on, she’ll go ‘Why you wearing that, why wouldn’t you get a Phil Simms jersey?’ She’s one of them. She really is. She’s diehard to my dad. They have more votes.”
While Carter won’t wear No. 11, Chris said the entire family is supporting him.
“We’re rooting for Abdul Carter, the Simms family, that’s for sure,” Chris said. “Even though he won’t be wearing No. 11 he can be an honor member of the Simms family or the No. 11 club if he wants to be.”
The Carlos Carrasco experiment has ended.
The Yankees designated the struggling veteran for assignment Tuesday after six starts and eight games in which he totaled a 5.91 ERA.
The Yankees already had skipped Carrasco this turn through the rotation and will need a fifth starter as soon as Tuesday in Seattle, assuming Clarke Schmidt, Max Fried, Will Warren and Carlos Rodón remain on regular rest.
Ryan Yarbrough has been impressive as a lengthy relief option, though is not built up as a traditional starter.
Allan Winans has been excellent with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, with whom he has not allowed an earned run in 14 innings while striking out 24.
While DFA’ing Carrasco, the Yankees recalled righty reliever Yerry de los Santos.
The Yankees apparently determined they could not continue to rely upon Carrasco, who has had a very nice 16-year career but at 38 years old has not been effective.