Joseph Cooper

The actor who played Salvatore 'Big Pussy' Bonpensiero on The Sopranos — Tony's oldest friend and the man who informed on him — has died at 80. He was found at his home in the Bronx. Before the 180-plus screen credits, he ran bars for two decades, which is the least academic possible training for the only job he ever needed.

Sixteen days after TMZ reported it, Slipknot posted a two-sentence confirmation that Wilson is out — and then deleted it. Two days earlier he had introduced himself on stage as a member of the band. On August 16 he confirmed it himself, without a statement: his Instagram bio now reads '@slipknot 1997-2026.'

Under subpoena from Rand Paul, Anthony Fauci declined to answer anything. Republicans argue Biden's preemptive pardon removed his prosecution risk and therefore his right to silence. His lawyers note the pardon is retroactive — it wouldn't cover a false statement made at Wednesday's hearing. A contempt vote is set for August 5.

A magnitude 6.8 quake struck Kyushu on Tuesday afternoon. Japan's building codes largely held: the shaking itself did not flatten Kumamoto City. Most of the dead were killed by what came after — a gas explosion that tore through the Aeon Mall an hour later, and a factory chimney that came down. The toll has passed 28 and rescuers are working in summer heat.

Wednesday night's drawing carries an estimated $663 million jackpot after no one won Monday. The cash option — the amount a winner actually takes now — is $290.4 million, and federal withholding starts there. Meanwhile Mega Millions just paid out $803 million to a single ticket in Florida, ending its run while Powerball's continues.

Julie Masino leaves on August 10 with $4.63 million over two years — and company-funded personal security for an undetermined period after she goes. The logo she approved lasted eight days before Trump demanded its restoration and Cracker Barrel complied the same afternoon. She later said she felt 'fired by America.' David Deno, formerly of Bloomin' Brands, takes over.

Seven years after eBay employees sent live cockroaches, a fetal pig and a funeral wreath to a Massachusetts couple who wrote a newsletter about the company, the case has settled. Companies normally indemnify executives and absorb the damage quietly. This settlement names three of them, and Devin Wenig is personally paying $2 million plus $1 million to a First Amendment charity in Ina Steiner's name.

Ford beat on earnings and raised full-year guidance, and the stock rose. Underneath: Model e lost $919 million on about $1 billion of revenue, an EBIT margin of -89.6%, and the company booked $4.2 billion in charges to unwind its battery joint venture and kill EV programs. The entire electric strategy now rests on a $30,000 pickup nobody has seen.

HBO Max Shorts is a vertical, scrollable feed of clips chosen by an AI that combs scene-level metadata for high-impact moments. Applied to a catalogue containing the Red Wedding, the Sopranos cut to black and every Succession reversal, that is a spoiler engine with human editors as the only brake. It also makes HBO the last major streamer to do this, not the first.

John Ternus takes over from Tim Cook on September 1. Asked at the 'Ted Lasso' season 4 premiere what he'll do first, he said, 'You have to wait and see.' Asked about Apple TV — the only unprofitable service Apple runs, losing more than $1 billion a year — he was specific: keep the momentum up.

Trump hosted Zelensky in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning, then Netanyahu at 11, then eulogized Lindsey Graham at the National Cathedral at 2. Ukraine is offering the drone and counter-drone technology the US wants. It is asking for missiles it needs now — and what it has been promised is the right to build them itself.

Amazon has asked the FCC to authorize a 5,105-satellite direct-to-device constellation, with launches beginning in 2028. The satellite count is the headline. The reason it's plausible is that Amazon already bought the licensed spectrum — and Apple's satellite business with it — when it acquired Globalstar in April.

A red Chevrolet Silverado left the Cicero Avenue bridge at about 2:16 a.m. and landed in a rail yard in Bedford Park. Vanessa Morales was 14 and had freshman orientation that morning. CPD said it terminated its pursuit — and a radio-traffic reconstruction shows that was true of a chase that ended 90 minutes earlier. A second pursuit, which CPD was leading, was still behind the truck when it went over.

The fire burning north of Bordeaux has consumed 42,000 hectares and reached within 15km of the city. It has generated a pyrocumulonimbus — a fire cloud that produces its own winds and lightning, which is what officials mean when they call it unmanageable. Spain has declared a national emergency.

Halo: Campaign Evolved goes wide on July 28 across Xbox, PS5 and PC — the first Halo ever on a PlayStation console. Critics gave it an 83 average. Steam users rated it Mixed, largely over crashes and login failures in a campaign-only game. And a secret Legendary ending says, out loud, 'See you in the sequel.'

Catherine Palaia was driving south through Milford on July 12 when a wheel separated from a northbound Ford F-250, struck several vehicles, cleared the concrete median and hit her SUV. Connecticut State Police still have not determined what caused the separation, and no charges have been announced. Wheel-off crashes are rare, preventable and almost always traceable to maintenance.

Paramount Skydance intended to close its $111 billion acquisition by the end of September. It has now agreed not to close until five days after an antitrust trial, or June 1, 2027, whichever comes first. The unusual part isn't the delay — it's that the Justice Department cleared this deal in June, and twelve states are prosecuting the case Washington declined to bring.

Police say two groups exchanged gunfire at Seattle Center, striking seven people and killing three — one of them a participant, not a bystander. A 15-year-old has now been charged with assault, not homicide, and preliminary ballistics indicate his gun did not fire the fatal rounds. A third shooter is unidentified. And on Thursday the police chief resigned.

Ben Stiller posted ten words from Kier Eagan and a pixelated frame of Mark S. and Helly R. running. Every outlet read it as a production-start tease. What made it more than a tease is that Apple TV's own account amplified it — and the man posting day-one photos isn't directing this season. Kogonada is.

'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' premiered in Los Angeles on Monday, four days before release. Holland says he'll keep going — then added, 'If this movie does good, I guess we'll see!' First reactions praise a grounded film that drops the multiverse. The casting says more about the tone than any adjective does.

After 13 nights of American strikes, the US paused. Iran paused too. Trump says he halted the attacks at Tehran's request and will resume if talks fail. Iran's Foreign Ministry says there are no negotiations. Both statements were made on Monday. What mediators are actually working on is not the nuclear program — it's who controls shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

A licence-verification failure took down Xbox sign-ins, the store and game launches for more than eleven hours, throwing error 0x87e107df at players trying to start titles they had already paid for. Microsoft says services are restored. It was the second Xbox outage in days, and some players are asking for compensation.

'Avengers: Doomsday' took $16.5 million in advance sales on day one — from roughly 1,000 premium screens, double what 'Deadpool & Wolverine' managed across every format. The reason those screens carry a new 'Infinity Vision' badge is that 'Dune: Part 3' opens the same day and has IMAX locked for three weeks.

Headlines are telling Costco shoppers they could be owed money. Most of them are not. The settlement covers people who were Washington State residents when they received a Costco marketing email between June 2021 and July 2026. No receipts required, but you have to file — and there is only one legitimate place to do it.