41-year-old Robert Vicosa, a former Maryland police officer and a father of two, abducted his two daughters, Giana, 6, and Aaminah, 7, with the help of a fellow ex-cop Tia Bynum, 35.
Unfortunately, after a manhunt, the girls, along with their abductors, were found injured and dead inside the SUV in what was described as a murder-suicide.
Before the kidnapping took place, Vicosa held the girls’ mother at knifepoint. Reports are she was assaulted as well.
MARYLAND MURDER SUICIDE: 2 sisters, 7 & 6, were shot dead by either their dad (a fmr. cop) or his accomplice (a cop) who kidnapped the girls after drugging their mom (who’s still alive) then took off & led police on a chase before all 4 were found dead. https://t.co/pttzAADF17
Vicosa and Bynum also kidnapped a random man on Wednesday and forced him to drive them 14 miles around Baltimore as they committed several crimes. Eventually, they released him without causing him any harm, according to Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt.
When the police came across a vehicle which matched the description of the one involved in the crimes, they attempted to stop it but the driver continued across the Maryland state line, veered off the road and crashed into a fence line.
As police officers approached the now crashed vehicle, they noticed three people dead at the scene. One of the girls was still alive and she was rushed to hospital but later died due to the severity of her injuries.
The latest on the 2 little girls kidnapped by their own father, a former Baltimore County Police officer:
▪️Both girls are now dead ▪️Their father, former officer Robert Vicosa, is dead ▪️His accomplice, Baltimore Co. Police Sgt. Tia Bynum, is dead
It still remains unclear who killed the girls before committing suicide. Whether it was their father or his friend Tia remains unknown. What we know is that four people lost their lives.
NBC reported that now late officer Vicosa had been a sergeant with the Baltimore County police, but was demoted to officer before getting fired earlier this year. His friend Tia Bynum who worked in the police department’s criminal investigations bureau and also died in the shooting was released from her job on Wednesday, prior to kidnapping Vicosa’s daughters.
Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year for those who celebrate it. And as the winter approaches and the holiday is just around the corner, we get this feeling of nostalgia and togetherness and feel the urge to spend those special moments with those that mean to us the most. The same goes for other holidays, such as Thanksgiving, the time when we share our gratitude and feel thankful for everything we have.
A story of an elderly lady texting her grandson to come over for Thanksgiving, but sending the message to someone else by mistake, went viral some years ago. If you wonder why, let us remind you of Wanda Dench, who invited her grandson to her home but had no idea he changed numbers. Instead, the text went to a young man named Jamal Hinton.
When he asked who was texting him, Wanda answered, “Your grandma.” Jamal then wrote, “You are not ma grandma, Can I still get a plate tho?”
“Of course you can,” Wanda replied. “That’s what grandmas do …feed every one.”
Fast forward, Jamal appeared on Wanda’s doorstep and they had a fun time together with the rest of Wanda’s family.
This happened in 2016, and from that Thanksgiving on, Jamal never missed a chance to spend the holiday with the Denches.
Last year, both Wanda and her husband Lonnie had COVID-19, and while she recovered, he didn’t make it.
I am so sad to announce that Wanda and Lonnie both have COVID-19 and that Lonnie is currently in the hospital fighting both COVID and Pneumonia please send words of love and encouragement their way 💛🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/tUNpUB20qg
Last year, the group gathered once again. Well, it became a tradition for them to spend Thanksgiving together, and now Jamal’s girlfriend was invited as well. On Nov. 26, 2020, Jamal posted the annual photo we’ve all been waiting for. They all stood around a framed photo of Lonnie, and Jamal wrote, “Thank you @wandadench for such an amazing celebration! You are such a blessing to this world. We miss you Lonnie.”
This year, they are planing on meeting again. “We are all set for year 6!” Jamal tweeted a few days ago.
It is amazing how a simple text led to such a beautiful friendship which lasts for years.
“We moved around a lot, so I was always going to new places,” Wanda, who grew up in a military family told ABC News. “And so strangers were not strangers to me. Family is more than blood. It’s the people you want to be with.”
Rumors are Melania Trump isn’t happy about her husband running for president again. It looks like she settled perfectly in the family’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where their son attends Oxbridge Academy as part of the class of 2024.
This incredible woman first met the former president at a New York Fashion Show in 1998. She was just starting her successful modeling career after moving to America from her homeland of Slovenia when recently divorced Donald Trump got interested in meeting her.
Shutterstock/Gints Ivuskans
Speaking to Larry King back in 2005, Trump recalled looking at Melania for the first time. “I went crazy. I was actually supposed to meet somebody else. There was this great supermodel sitting next to Melania. They said, ‘Look, there’s so and so.’ I said, ‘Forget about her. Who is the one on the left? And it was Melania.”
She, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be interested in meeting him or starting a relationship. “He wanted my number,” Melania Trump told Tatler. “But he was on a date, so of course I didn’t give it to him. I said, ‘I am not giving you my number; give me yours and I will call you.’ If I give him my number, I’m just one of the women he calls.”
One thing led to another, and they eventually tied the knot and welcomed son Barron Trump.
When Trump won the 2016 presidential elections, the family left Trump Tower for the White House.
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Melania was very supportive of her husband and executed the role of a First Lady just perfectly.
However, now that they are no longer residing in Washington D.C., some of Trump’s associates who served him during his presidency decided to open up about what was going on behind close doors.
Stephanie Grisham, former White House press secretary and author of the book I’ll Take Your Questions Now, revealed what truly happened when then First Lady Melania visited a migrant housing facility in Texas wearing a jacket with the text “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?”
As media representatives took a notice of the controversial text which was obviously unsuitable for the occasion, Melania got slammed big time for her wrong choice of clothing. This made Trump really mad. Once home, he started yelling at his wife. “He yelled and asked “what the [expletive]” they thought they were doing,” Grisham wrote, according to Washington Post.
In an interview with the CNN, Melania spoke of the incident. “It’s obvious I didn’t wear the jacket for the children,” she said. “I wore the jacket to go on the plane and off the plane. And it was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me.”
Shutterstock/ Frederic Legrand – COMEO
Donald and Melania celebrated their 16th wedding anniversary in January and it looks like they are going strong as day one. One thing that makes their marriage picture-perfect is the fact that Melania knows what led to her husband’s former marriages to fail and she’s doing things differently as a result. One of her former friends and Met Gala producer Stephanie Winston Wolkoff wrote in her book Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady, that unlike Trump’s exes, she never tried using his name in order to promote her work and businesses.
“She was very well aware of what he wanted — and didn’t want — in his third wife. He wasn’t the kind of husband who cheered on his wife’s career,” Wolkoff wrote in her book, according to Yahoo. “Melania told me the secret of her long marriage to him is that she is completely different from his other wives.”
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Melania believed that Ivana Trump and Marla Maples put too much pressure on Donald and that’s why their marriages didn’t work out.
“Unlike Marla Maples, Melania didn’t pressure him emotionally,” Wolkoff wrote. “Unlike Marla Maples, Donald’s first wife, who ran one of his Atlantic City casinos and sold jewelry and clothes on QVC for a decade, Melania didn’t pressure Donald for things to do.”
As the name of actor Alec Baldwin is all over the magazines and the social media due to the fatal shooting which took place on the set of the movie Rustwhich he both produced and played in, we go back to his life prior to the tragic incident and recall what made his relationship with his daughter Ireland Baldwin a hot topic back in the day, and how things are going between them nowadays.
Baldwin met his first wife, beautiful Kim Basinger, on the set of The Marrying Man back in 1990. According to Entertainment Weekly, director Jesse Reese recalled that Basinger saw photos of her and Baldwin placed next to each other at his office and said, “We are going to make a terrific couple.” Not long after that, the true started a relationship and married, welcoming daughter Ireland in their lives in 1995.
“He kissed me and then asked me if I wanted kids,” Basinger said an interview with People. She told him he was “psychotic” and that he should concentrate on the movie. He, on the other hand, called his friends and told them Kim was “driving me crazy” and that he would marry her.
Source: Shutterstock/Bart Sherkow
Speaking to Variety in 2000, The Cooler star said, “The reason I fell in love with Kim is that she’s so odd. With that kind of beauty, this is a woman who could have married the head of a studio or a big director or a movie star who gets $20 million a movie.
“She could have everyone shining her ass 24 hours a day. She could have played ball. But she’s a very odd woman. I’ve done plays by Tennessee Williams; he was really able to enunciate certain southern characters. I’m from Long Island—I never really knew they existed. But my wife is one of those people—an absolutely maddeningly peculiar, exotic, lovely person.”
Their marriage seemed picture-perfect, but then in 2001, she filed for divorce. This came as a shock to the couple’s fans, but her father, Don Basinger, said this decision didn’t come out of the blue. “I’ve known for a year and a half that she was thinking about this,” he told People. “I love Alec, he’s the most kind and generous man I’ve ever known in my life, and he’s overcome some very difficult things. All but one: his anger,” he added. “This has happened publicly. But it’s when it started happening in front of Ireland that Kim finally said, ‘Well, I’m not going to put up with that.’”
Source: Jemal Countess/WireImage/Gettty Images
At the time of their divorce, their daughter Ireland was only five. Sadly, she found herself in the middle of her parents’ nightmare custody battle which lasted for years. After racking up over $3 million in legal costs, they agreed on joint custody.
Ireland had a decent relationship with both her parents, but things changed after Baldwin left her a voice message calling her “a rude thoughtless little pig” because she failed to respond to one of his calls. At the time this voicemail leaked to the press, Ireland was 11. She felt devastated as everyone was talking about her and her dad.
“I don’t think anybody ever recovers now from things like that,” Baldwin wrote in his 2008 memoir A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce. “It’s a scab that never heals … I thin my daughter, that’s hurt her in a permanent way.”
Source: Shutterstock/ s_bukley
Ireland, who’s now 26, managed to put the incident behind her, and today, her relationship with her famous dad is back to where it used to be. They are very close and getting along just perfectly.
Speaking of the time the voicemail placed her name on pretty much every magazine, she responds with humor. During an appearance on the Comedy Central Roast, she said jokingly, “Hi Dad, I’m Ireland. It’s good to be here. I almost didn’t even know about it because I haven’t checked my voice mails from my dad from the last 12 years or something?
“I actually have a lot in common with the people in this roast,” she added. “Because like them, I don’t really know you that well either.”
Source: Shutterstock/Al Teich
Baldwin regrets not spending enough time with Ireland while she was growing up. “You look at all the time that was lost … If you did an analysis of the actual days I spent with Ireland [when she was growing up], you’d be appalled at how little it was,” the actor explained.
“Trying to make it in the business and not getting that right, never getting that right. I married somebody who was successful. She was a very successful actress. Kim was kind of peaking. She was 37 and I was 32. We got married. We both were working all the time. [Ireland] would go with Kim on location and I would go and meet them. Then we got divorced. There was a very acrimonious custody battle. Painful. Painful.”
Source: Shutterstock/Tinseltown
Ireland works as a model and an actress. She had her first contract with IMG Models before turning 13. She’s also appeared in several movies, including Grudge Match, Love Advent, and the 2020 flick A Dark Foe.
Her net worth is estimated at $1 million.
She often shares realistic photos of her self on social media and encourages young people to love themselves the way they are.
“This is who I am, take it or leave,” she wrote recently. “I am not going to be body shamed for being pale or not stick thin. I’m not going to spend hours photoshopping my authenticity away, I’m not going to beat myself up for not looking like someone else. I’m not going to be told that I’m damaged goods because of my tattoos.
“Most days I’m self-conscious, but today I love every curve and edge. Your body should be treated with the dignity and respect it deserves,” she continued. “I want to be as real as possible with everyone that follows me because to be quite honest, what is even the point of social media if you can’t be who you truly are?”
If the name Alana Thomson doesn’t ring the bell, Honey Boo Boo certainly does.
Alana, a chubby little girl, first won the hearts of many when she was just five years old and her mom June Shannon forced her into beauty pageants. The two were part of the reality show Toddlers and Tiaras and gained huge popularity which led to their own show which aired on TLC in 2012, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.
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The show was one of the highest-rated shows, and although many enjoyed watching the Georgia family’s adventures, it was also slammed by many, including Tim Goodman who wrote in The Hollywood Reporter, “You know this show is exploitation. TLC knows it. Maybe even Mama and HBB know it, deep down in their rotund bodies. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is a car crash, and everybody rubber-necks at a car crash, right? It’s human nature.”
“Yes, except that if you play that card, you also have to realize that human nature comes with the capacity to draw a line, to hold fast against the dehumanization and incremental tearing down of the social fabric, even if this never-ending onslaught of reality television suggests that’s a losing effort. You can say no to visual exploitation. You can say no to TLC. And you can say no to Honey Boo Boo Child.”
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Besides Alana and Mama June, the show also featured the three sisters, Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon, Jessica “Chubbs” Shannon, and Anna “Chickadee” Shannon as well as the father Mike “Sugar Bear” Thompson.
The show was canceled in 2014, after four seasons. It was reported how some episodes of season five were already made, but they never saw the light of the day. The reason Here Comes Honey Boo Boo came to an end was Mama June’s alleged relationship with a sex offender who used to molest one of her daughters.
When Mama June moved on and left her husband, he was no longer part of the life of Honey Boo Boo who spoke of him last year and told OK Magazine, “The only time I ever see him is if we’re filming with him, which is very rarely. I tell myself all the time, I’m not going to put effort into something where there’s no effort being put in by the other person, or the other person doesn’t even care. So I’m not going to care about something that the other person don’t care about. He knows that I think we should have a better relationship, that we should see each other, like, once a month.”
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Mama June was a real star herself and gained popularity and a number of fans.
She has been obese her whole life, but once the show was over, she decided to change her life drastically and dropped from 460 pounds to size 4. This led to her own show in 2017 titled Mama June: From Not to Hot. Alana was part of the show as well.
The sweet girl who is now 15 was part of Dancing with the Stars Junior in 2018 and she and dance partner Tristan Ianiero ended eighth.
Youtube/WE tv
Last year, Mama June and boyfriend Eugene “Geno” Doak were arrested and charged for possession of narcotics.
Her daughters spoke of their mom’s problem with addiction and even staged an intervention during which Alana said, “Mama, I would love to come home and stay with you — tell you about my day, but I can’t do that because I’m scared.”
After the arrest, Alana moved in with her sister Lauren. She felt the urge to speak of the things that happened to her and encourage others who were experiencing the same. “Can we just be real for a second? Let me tell y’all how proud I am of myself! I have honestly been thought hell and back this year! And I’m still standing! I have been doing so good in school and just being more happy! I get so much hate but then I think about who all loves me and I know them haters mean nothing. Let me just be the one to tell y’all if you are going through anything right now trust me it gets better you are worth it , I’m so proud of you, I can see you trying, I love you!” Honey Boo Boo wrote.
Instagram/HoneyBooBoo
For Alana’s 15th birthday in August 2020, her mom surprised her with hitting the 6 months milestone of being sober. The teen also got a very special gift from the music group Sorellé who sang Happy Birthday a cappella in a personalized video for her.
“Hey guys, real quick I just wanted to jump on here. I know my birthday isn’t until Monday, but I want to share this six-month blinged out chip that my manager sent me for my birthday,” June told People.
“It’s probably the most thing I’m proud of because now me and Geno are over six months clean. This is amazing, y’all. I’m so proud of this.”
Alana has been in front of the camera almost her whole life and she grew up right in front our eyes. We hope she will make the most out of her teenage years because she deserves only the best.
We have artist Billy Joel to thank to for some of the best hits ever recorded, including New York State of Mind, Just the Way You Are, and Uptown Girl. His career, which spans many years, is one of the most successful there are. This incredible man who accomplished incredible things in the world of music remains one of the best of the best. Having won numerous awards, including Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, he is still very active and performing.
Joel has been married three times and has three daughters. His eldest daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, started a career as a singer in her own right and is following into her famous dad’s footsteps. She released her first independently distributed EP in 2007 and performed at huge festivals like Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
Source: Shutterstock/Featureflash Photo Agency
Speaking of all the women in his life, Joel told Rolling Stone Magazine in 2019, “All my life’s been women. I was raised by women — my dad wasn’t around. I’ve been married numerous times, and I’ve got three daughters. So, a lot of estrogen in my life.” The musician added, “I think I had a very fortunate upbringing. My mom encouraged me to be a musician. I know a lot of guys who were my age whose fathers intimidated them into not being musicians. So I had a very gentle upbringing. It was very loving, very warm, and I appreciate that about women. I see that in my daughters too. I’m gonna bring up these kids who one day will be mothers themselves, and I hope they’re like my mom.”
Currently, he’s married to Alexis Roderick.
Source: Youtube/BillyJoel
In 2013, Joel made New Yorkers smile when he announced he was going to become “a resident” of Madison Square Garden. His show had grossed over $45 million in October 2015, and his successful “love story” with the city that never sleeps seems to be a never-ending one.
Over the years, Joel experienced certain health issues which troubled his performances, such as when he was forced to pull out of the joint tour with superstar Elton John in 1998 due to severe asthma.
“In the old days I could scream and punch my way through it, but now it wouldn’t be fair to my fans,” Joel said at the time.
Elton John added: “It was a little odd not seeing Billy there because we’re so used to doing this thing, and not seeing the piano and him across from me was very strange.”
Source: Shutterstock/Debby Wong
In 2010, Joel underwent a double-hip replacement surgery. It appeared that his acrobatic on-stage performances took their toll.
“Over the years, jumping off the piano, landing on a hard stage certainly didn’t help,” Joel told the New York Times, as quoted by the New York Post.
“Way back in the early ’70s, I used to do somersaults, flips off the piano. I would climb up the cables and hang upside down, anything to get attention. But over the years it got excruciating. I couldn’t walk at one point; I had one of those little scooter chairs, banging into furniture.”
Source: Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic/GEtty
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Joel, as every other musician out there, was forced to put his performances on hold. The good thing, however, is that he recently returned to Madison Square Garden for another incredible show.
Well, it wasn’t just his singing that enchanted his fans, but his looks too. It looks like the 72-year-old singer has lost around 50 pounds, but it wasn’t intentional.
“I had back surgery early this year and the pain afterward was so bad I lost my appetite,” he told Howard Stern.
“I embraced that, I said, ‘OK, I won’t eat as much and I ate less and less and less and less and then there was just life aggravation and that tends to, you know, impact your appetite too.
“I had gotten kind of chunky, I was happy to lose the weight.”
Source: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
We hope Billy Joel would entertain us for many more years.
The name Amira Willighagen became a household name in her native country of Holland almost overnight. Chances are that her angelic voice will open her the doors to many other countries, including America.
The moment she took the stage of Holland’s Got Talent, 9-year-old Amira charmed everyone who heard her singing. A true prodigy with out-of-the-world talent, Amira’s every performance was awaited by the public with eagerness and admiration.
For the finals of the music show, Amira chose a difficult piece, the song from the opera Turandot written by great Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. It is a love story about the Unknown Prince, Calaf, the Prince of Persia, who fell for the cruel Chinese Princess Turandot and was willing to sacrifice his life for her.
Source: Amira Willighagen | Official
It is truly impressive that a girl this young could emit the raw emotion brought by this opera piece.
This wasn’t the first time for her to perform Puccini’s piece. In fact, it was another opera of his that made her a sensation in her country.
Wearing a simple outfit complemented with golden accessories and bangles, Amira resembled a real diva. A choir singing in darkness accompanied her performance and what Amira showed stunned everyone. Not surprisingly, she ended up winning the grand prize after the audience voted her into first place.
Source: Amira Willighagen | Official
What is even more special about this girl is that she’s using her popularity for a much greater good than just enjoying the applause and the attention she’s getting from her fans.
Using her winnings, Amira set up a non-profit organization whose goal is opening parks for children at underprivileged areas. These parks are called “Amira’s parks” and are built for children who might otherwise never have the hope for a local park in their neighborhood.
You can take a look at Amira’s 13-million-views-worth performance in the video below.
The fatal shooting on the set of the movie Rust which was taking place in Santa Fe, Mexico, claimed the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and left another injured. It was actor Alec Baldwin who accidentally killed Hutchins, a wife and a mother of one.
He was supposed to shoot towards the camera using prop gun when the tragedy took place. Devastating Baldwin started a movement asking police officers to be present on set when firearms is used and many support this request, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Reports were that crew members left the set even before the scene in question took place, apparently because they were not satisfied with the working conditions and their safety. Now, one of them, Serge Svetnoy, filed a law suit against Baldwin and the rest of the Rust producers.
Reuters reported that Svetnoy has “accused the producers and other crew of failing to implement safety standards. He has filed a negligence suit against Baldwin and the movie’s producers.”
Among the rest, the lawsuit included that “[Svetnoy] would be haunted forever by holding cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in his arms as she bled from the chest.”
During a press conference, Svetnoy said, “What a tragedy and injustice when a person loses her life on film set while making art.”
A crew member of ‘Rust’, Serge Svetnoy who was the chief electrician on the movie set and witnessed the fatal shooting last month, filed a negligence lawsuit on Wednesday against actor Alec Baldwin and the film’s producers https://t.co/8gTIrLDQmhpic.twitter.com/3K2wOAWKxv
Among the defendants whose names were put in the lawsuit is that of armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed who provided Baldwin with the gun. Her lawyer Jason Bowles said in a statement, “We are convinced this was sabotage and Hannah is being framed. We believe that the scene was tampered with as well before the police arrived.
“We are asking for a full and complete investigation of all of the facts, including the live rounds themselves, how they ended up in the ‘dummies’ box, and who put them in there.”
Last month, Alec Baldwin commented on the tragic incident saying, “We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened.”
