ReportWire

Tag: Kim Kardashian West

  • The son of Asia’s richest man gets married in the year’s most extravagant wedding

    The son of Asia’s richest man gets married in the year’s most extravagant wedding

    [ad_1]

    MUMBAI – The youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, married his longtime girlfriend early Saturday in what many dubbed the wedding of the year, attended by global celebrities, business tycoons and politicians, highlighting the billionaire’s staggering wealth and rising clout.

    The wedding rituals, including exchanging garlands by the couple and walking around the sacred fire, began Friday and were completed past midnight.

    The celebrations of Anant Ambani marrying Radhika Merchant took place at the Ambani-owned Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai and the family home. The marriage culminated months of wedding events that featured performances by pop stars including Rihanna and Justin Bieber.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended a reception organized by the Ambanis on Saturday evening.

    The Ambanis hosted a “blessing ceremony’’ for friends and family members to meet the couple and wish them a happy married life.

    India Today television news channel reported that the newlyweds touched Modi’s feet as a show of respect and sought his blessings.

    The four-day wedding celebrations began Friday with the traditional Hindu wedding ceremony and will be followed by a grand reception to run through the weekend. The guest list includes former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson; John Kerry, the former U.S. special envoy for climate, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin H. Nasser; and Adele, Lana Del Rey, Drake and David Beckham, according to local media. The Ambani family did not confirm the guest list.

    Television news channels showed the arrivals of celebrities like Kim Kardashian, who was dressed in red, and professional wrestler and Hollywood actor John Cena.

    Kardashian sisters Kim and Khloé took a ride in a motorized rickshaw through bustling Mumbai streets Friday before joining the wedding ceremonies, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

    International guests wore traditional clothes by major Indian fashion designers. They put on embroidered sherwanis — long-sleeved outer coats worn by men in South Asia. Cena came in a sky-blue sherwani and white pants. Nick Jonas wore a pink sherwani and white pants.

    Bollywood icons Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Ranbir Kapoor attended the wedding and danced to popular Hindi movie songs. Indian cricketers, including icons Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav, were among the invitees.

    Police imposed traffic diversions around the wedding venue from Friday to Monday to handle the influx of guests who flew to Mumbai, where heavy monsoon rains have caused flooding and flight disruptions for the past week.

    The extravaganza and the display of opulence that comes with the wedding have led many to raise questions about rising inequality in India, where the gap between rich and poor is growing. The event has also sparked anger among some Mumbai residents, who say they are struggling with snarled traffic.

    “It affects our earnings. I don’t care much about the wedding,” said Vikram, a taxi driver who uses only one name.

    The father of the groom, Mukesh Ambani, is the world’s ninth-richest man, with a net worth of $116 billion, according to Forbes. He is the richest person in Asia. His Reliance Industries is a conglomerate reporting over $100 billion in annual revenue, with interests that include petrochemicals, oil and gas, telecoms and retail.

    The Ambani family owns, among other assets, a 27-story family compound in Mumbai worth $1 billion. The building contains three helipads, a 160-car garage and a private movie theater.

    The groom, 29-year-old Anant, oversees the conglomerate’s renewable and green energy expansion. He also runs a 3,000-acre (about 1,200-hectare) animal rescue center in Gujarat state’s Jamnagar, the family’s hometown.

    The bride, Radhika Merchant, also 29, is the daughter of pharmaceutical tycoon Viren Merchant and is the marketing director for his company, Encore Healthcare, according to Vogue.

    Ambani’s critics say his company has relied on political connections during Congress Party-led governments in the 1970s and ’80s, and under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule after 2014.

    The Ambani family’s pre-wedding celebrations have been lavish and star-studded from the start.

    In March, they threw a three-day prenuptial bash for Anant that had 1,200 guests, including former world leaders, tech tycoons and Bollywood megastars, and performances by Rihanna, Akon and Diljit Dosanjh, a Punjabi singer who shot to international fame when he performed at Coachella. The event was also attended by tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

    It was the start of lavish, months-long pre-wedding celebrations that grabbed headlines and set off a social media frenzy.

    In May, the family took guests on a three-day cruise from Italy to France, which included Katy Perry singing her hit song “Firework” and a performance by Pitbull, according to media reports.

    The family also organized a mass wedding for more than 50 underprivileged couples on July 2 as part of the celebrations.

    Last week, Justin Bieber performed for hundreds of guests at a pre-wedding concert that included performances by Bollywood stars Alia Bhatt, Ranveer Singh and Salman Khan.

    Ambani also made headlines in 2018, when Beyoncé performed at pre-wedding festivities for his daughter. Former U.S. Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were among those who rubbed shoulders with Indian celebrities and Bollywood stars in the western Indian city of Udaipur.

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

    [ad_2]

    Rafiq Maqbool And Rajanish Kakade, Associated Press

    Source link

  • Texas man who long claimed innocence is executed for the slayings of 2, including cousin

    Texas man who long claimed innocence is executed for the slayings of 2, including cousin

    [ad_1]

    HOUSTON – A Texas man who had long claimed his conviction more than 20 years ago was based on false testimony and questionable evidence was executed Wednesday for fatally shooting two people, including his cousin.

    Ivan Cantu received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the November 2000 fatal shooting of his cousin, James Mosqueda, 27, and his cousin’s girlfriend, Amy Kitchen, 22. In final words from the execution chamber, the 50-year-old inmate said several times that he was innocent.

    “I want you to know that I never killed James and Amy,” he told relatives and a friend of Kitchen who stood feet away from him while watching through a window. “And if I did, if I knew who did, you would’ve been the first to know any information.”

    He said he wanted them to know he didn’t think his death “will bring you closure. If it does, if this is what it takes or have any reservations off in your mind, then so be it.”

    Prosecutors had said Cantu killed Mosqueda, who dealt illegal drugs, and Kitchen as he tried to steal cocaine, marijuana and cash from his cousin’s north Dallas home. The inmate, who was convicted in 2001, had long claimed a rival drug dealer killed his cousin in a dispute over money.

    Before his statement, his spiritual adviser, Helen Prejean, held in her hand his right hand that was strapped to the death chamber gurney and prayed quielty over him. He thanked friends and supporters and urged that his case continue to be investigated to prove, “I don’t belong on this gurney.”

    As a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began flowing, he began snoring. After the eighth snore, which was accompanied by a gasp, he stopped all movement. Twenty-one minutes after the drugs started, he was pronounced dead.

    Cantu’s was the first execution in Texas this year and one of two scheduled Wednesday in the U.S. Hours earlier, Idaho authorities halted the execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech after a medical team repeatedly failed to find a vein to insert an IV line needed to administer a lethal injection. Creech was condemned for killing a fellow prisoner with a battery-filled sock in 1981.

    The Texas execution proceeded hours after Cantu’s attorney, Gena Bunn, said she would not make a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for lack of “a viable path” for the high court’s consideration of the case.

    Two lower courts on Tuesday denied Cantu’s request to intervene. And on Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 against commuting Cantu’s death sentence to a lesser penalty. Efforts to delay Cantu’s execution had received the support of faith leaders, celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and actor Martin Sheen, and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, and his brother, former U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro.

    Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis, whose office convicted Cantu, said that evidence presented at trial proved Cantu committed the killings. “I remain fully convinced that Ivan Cantu brutally murdered two innocent victims in 2000,” Willis said in a recent statement.

    But Bunn had written in Cantu’s clemency application that new evidence “impugns the integrity of the State’s case for guilt and raises the specter that the State of Texas could execute an innocent man.”

    In Cantu’s apartment, police found bloody jeans with the victims’ DNA and a key to the victims’ home. Police found Cantu’s gun at his ex-girlfriend’s home. Mosqueda’s blood was found on the gun’s barrel while Cantu’s fingerprints were found on the gun’s magazine.

    In a 2005 affidavit, Matthew Goeller, one of Cantu’s trial attorneys, said Cantu admitted to him “he had indeed killed Mosqueda for ‘ripping him off’ on a drug deal” and that Kitchen was killed because she was a witness.

    Cantu’s then-girlfriend, Amy Boettcher, was the prosecution’s main witness. Boettcher, who died in 2021, testified that Cantu told her he was going to kill Mosqueda and Kitchen and later took her back to the crime scene after the killings.

    But Bunn alleged that Boettcher’s testimony was riddled with false statements.

    The defense attorney also said new witness statements also helped confirm Cantu’s claim that a man who had supplied drugs to Mosqueda had threatened the cousin days before the killings.

    Bunn credited an independent probe by Matt Duff, a private investigator, with uncovering much of the new evidence. Duff has chronicled his findings in a podcast called “Cousins By Blood.”

    Of the new evidence presented by Cantu, Willis’ office had said “none of it destroys the cornerstones of the State’s case.”

    The next execution in Texas, which has been the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, is not scheduled until June 26. Inmate James Harris Jr. had been scheduled for execution on March 13 until an appeals court issued a stay in his case last week.

    ___

    Juan Lozano reported from Houston.

    Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

    [ad_2]

    Juan A. Lozano, Associated Press

    Source link

  • Fran Drescher responds to criticism about her Italy trip and pic with Kim Kardashian days before SAG strike | CNN

    Fran Drescher responds to criticism about her Italy trip and pic with Kim Kardashian days before SAG strike | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Fran Drescher, the president of the SAG-AFTRA union, responded to criticism on Thursday for traveling to Italy to attend Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda festivities this past weekend as her 160,000-member actors’ union faced a deadline to go on strike.

    At a press conference that day – during which Drescher officially announced that the union will go on strike after talks with the Hollywood’s major studios and streamers failed – she was asked about the “optics” of being seen taking a “selfie” with Kim Kardashian at the event in Italy.

    “That wasn’t a selfie,” Drescher said, later adding “I’m a brand ambassador for a fashion company and so is Kim. I had only met Kim seconds before that publicity picture was taken.”

    She added that “it had nothing to do with being at a party having fun – it was absolute work.”

    The “Nanny” star said she left the event at 10:30 at night to go to her hotel room and meet with union negotiators on Zoom, adding that she “worked around the clock in three different time zones.”

    “And if I couldn’t get through to them because I was on a plane, I was texting with them constantly throughout the plane ride,” Drescher said, adding that she had also traveled to Florida to care for her parents – and worked while there, too.

    The photo of Drescher with Kardashian prompted criticism from a number of SAG-AFTRA members, as well as members of the Writer Guild of America, which is already on strike against the studios and streaming services.

    Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, co-chair of SAG-AFTRA, chimed in to defend Drescher on Thursday, saying “Fran was working, which is what our members do,” and that “she was zooming in to our negotiations after work hours, working 18 hours or more a day.”

    SAG-AFTRA’s talks with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP), the entity representing the studios and streamers, focused on pay scales and benefits, progress on residuals paid for when films or shows are shown again, particularly on streaming services, as well as protections on the use of artificial intelligence to create characters using actors’ voices or likenesses.

    At Thursday’s news conference, Drescher said the union would not accept changes to their contract that do not match up with the changes happening in the industry.

    “We’re not going to keep doing incremental changes on a contract that no longer honors what is happening right now with this business model that was foisted upon us,” she said, going on to ask, “What are we doing? Moving around furniture on the Titanic? It’s crazy.”

    The SAG-AFTRA strike is set to go into effect at midnight PT Thursday night.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Kim Kardashian and Kanye West reach divorce settlement | CNN

    Kim Kardashian and Kanye West reach divorce settlement | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have come to a divorce agreement, a source with knowledge of the negotiations tells CNN.

    Per the agreement, a draft of which was obtained by CNN, Kardashian will receive $200,000 per month in child support from West, who last year legally changed his name to Ye, and share joint custody of their four children.

    CNN has reached out to representatives for Kardashian and West for comment.

    Kardashian filed for divorce from West in February 2021, citing irreconcilable differences.

    The couple was married in a lavish wedding in Italy in 2014.

    In March 2022, Kardashian was declared legally single after being granted a request to change her marital status.

    In an interview with Vogue earlier this year, the Skims founder explained what led to her high-profile split, saying, that “for so long, I did what made other people happy” and that she decided “I’m going to make myself happy.”

    She went on to say that “even if that created changes and caused my divorce, I think it’s important to be honest with yourself about what really makes you happy.”

    “I’ve chosen myself,” she told the publication. “I think it’s okay to choose you.”

    In September, West, who in the latter part of this year has lost multiple business partnerships following a string of antisemitic comments, publicly apologized to Kardashian in an interview with “Good Morning America” for “any stress” he’s caused her.

    “This is the mother of my children, and I apologize for any stress that I have caused, even in my frustration because God calls me to be stronger,” West said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Kim Kardashian settles with SEC over crypto promotion

    Kim Kardashian settles with SEC over crypto promotion

    [ad_1]

    Kim Kardashian has agreed to pay $1.26 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency on Instagram without disclosing she’d been paid $250,000 to do so

    Kim Kardashian has agreed to pay $1.26 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency on Instagram without disclosing she’d been paid $250,000 to do so.

    The SEC said Monday that the reality TV star and entrepreneur has agreed to cooperate with its ongoing investigation.

    The SEC said Kardashian failed to disclose that she was paid to publish a post on her Instagram account about EMAX tokens, a crypto asset security being offered by EthereumMax.

    Kardashian’s post contained a link to the EthereumMax website, which provided instructions for potential investors to purchase EMAX tokens.

    “The federal securities laws are clear that any celebrity or other individual who promotes a crypto asset security must disclose the nature, source, and amount of compensation they received in exchange for the promotion,” Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s division of enforcement, said in a prepared statement.

    Kardashian has agreed to not promote any crypto asset securities for three years.

    The Associated Press was not immediately able to reach Kardashian for comment.

    While Kardashian is well known for reality TV, currently appearing on “The Kardashians” on hulu, she is also a successful businesswoman. Her brands include SKIMS, which has shapewear, loungewear and other products, and a skincare line called SKKN.

    [ad_2]

    Source link