National cyber crime unit

Federal prosecutors granted immunity to David Pecker , the CEO of National Enquirer ‘s publisher and a longtime Donald Trump pal, in the Michael Cohen investigation. Back in June, Fox New reported that federal authorities had subpoenaed American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer, for records related to its $150,000 payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal for the rights to her story alleging an affair with  Trump. The payment was part of a catch-and-kill scheme to bury her story in advance of the 2016 election. Pecker was granted immunity in the investigation of Cohen’s dealings in that catch-and-kill scheme as well as the hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels , who also claims she had an affair with Trump. Pecker met with prosecutors to describe Cohen’s involvement in the hush money schemes brokered ahead of the 2016 election, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Cohen plead guilty to campaign finance violations, saying that, … [Read more...] about National Enquirer Boss David Pecker Got Immunity in Michael Cohen Probe: Report

Jim Mahoney was one of Hollywood’s go-to guys. He spent 60+ years in public relations, guiding the public images of Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Christie Brinkley, Peggy Lee, and hundreds more. He was on the front lines when Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped, and was at the party at Peter Lawford’s house the night Marilyn Monroe died. He was also there with the Rat Pack in Las Vegas. Now age 95, Mahoney has captured all of that in a memoir, Get Mahoney!: A Hollywood Insider’s Memoir. “Get Mahoney!” was the phrase often used when stars and their handlers knew trouble was brewing and needed to keep their names out of the press. Mahoney was good at his job, and frequently referred to himself as a better “suppress” agent than press agent. “It was about ‘taming the lion’ – both the press and the clients themselves,” Mahoney said. That sometimes involved making arrangements with the authorities and media to keep … [Read more...] about Jim Mahoney, PR To Sinatra, McQueen, Gable, Explores 60 Years Of Hollywood In Memoir: “It Was About Taming The Lion”

Alfonso Cuarón took the top feature film award for Roma at tonight’s 71st Annual DGA Awards , fellow feature film nominee Adam McKay took the TV drama series nod for Succession and Bo Burnham snagged the first-time director nod for Eighth Grade. “ Roma simply doesn’t exist without the generosity of spirit and effortless grace of Yalitza (Aparicio) and Marina (De Tavira). They somehow with the rest of my beautiful cast managed to bring to life this film from my memory,” Cuarón said in accepting the award for his film that is an homage to his childhood. The guild award has been a top bellwether for the best directing Oscar. Last year’s winner Guillermo del Toro, who presented tonight’s award to Cuarón, went on to win the Academy Award in directing for The Shape of Water. The film won four Oscars in all, including best picture. The guild and Oscars have differed only seven times since the DGA started giving awards in 1949. Burnham won the first-time feature … [Read more...] about DGA Awards: Alfonso Cuarón Wins For ‘Roma’; Adam McKay & ‘Succession’ Top TV — Full Winners List

Journalists for the Los Angeles legal newspaper Daily Journal write today about a tabloid reporter in the early 1990s surreptitiously taping Anthony Pellicano — bugging the bugger, according to LAObserved — while the PI fed, watered and overall negotiated with the night-crawlers of the news biz. (Actually, that was reported extensively two years ago by local TV news station KCBS and its then reporter Drew Griffin, who used the news break to leap to CNN.) But the Daily Journal claims today that the recorded conversations with Pellicano suggest lawyer Bert Fields didn’t know about the PI’s methods. I, too, was shown some tape transcripts back in 2004 pertaining to this. When I couldn’t hear the recordings themselves — none of the 250 microcassettes were made available to me but they were to KCBS’s Griffin — I didn’t feel comfortable going with the story. At the time, I believed and still do that drawing any such a conclusion one way or the other re Fields/Pellicano from the … [Read more...] about Old, Old News: Pellicano/Tabloids

SAG-AFTRA is working on what will be the first truly comprehensive picture of the employment landscape for women and minority actors and hopes to release it within a year. SAG used to release the reports annually, then in 2004 it started issuing them every other year. After 2009, it stopped releasing the reports altogether. The problem was that AFTRA never released comprehensive casting reports on actors employed under its jurisdiction – which included daytime soaps and some primetime and basic cable shows, and new pilots – so the employment picture SAG presented was never really complete. And in the years leading up to their 2012 merger, AFTRA launched a concerted campaign to sign more pilots and cable shows to its contract by offering more favorable terms than SAG’s – a move that sparked a bitter feud between the two unions. Related: SAG-AFTRA Sets May 5 For Start Of New Contract Talks With AMPTP As AFTRA’s share of the TV jurisdiction ballooned, the missing piece … [Read more...] about SAG-AFTRA Working On Wide-Ranging Report About Casting Diversity

TMZ.com UPDATE 1:16 PM PT -- Biden just addressed the balloon operation, saying he ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down as soon as possible -- noting he had given that order on Wednesday. He told reporters that he was informed that the safest way to do it would be to wait until it was above open waters. UPDATE Here's the (potential) problem with that ... the White House has gone on record to say JB was first briefed about the balloon on Tuesday, but Bloomberg reports his administration had actually become aware of its presence as early as Jan. 28th (last Saturday). UPDATE President Biden: "I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible." #ChineseSpyBalloon https://t.co/D5i5CRR8iy pic.twitter.com/w2rr3SPIsF — CSPAN (@cspan) February 4, 2023 @cspan UPDATE No other major outlets have confirmed that ... but, if true, it would indicate Biden's camp was trying to keep this hush-hush until they couldn't any … [Read more...] about U.S. Shoots Down Chinese Balloon, Dramatic Video of Blow-Up Moment

TMZ/Shutterstock The Chinese spy balloon is down, but questions remain -- like, whether this has happened on another president's watch ... which the Dept. of Defense says it did, pointing to Trump . Here's the deal ... the DoD issued a lengthy statement Saturday explaining what exactly happened leading up to an F-22 fighter jet of ours safely shooting down the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean, just outside of Surfside Beach, SC. We all remember that, yes? TMZ.com They reiterated what everyone had already heard at that point ... that the U.S. believes the balloon had been purposely sent here by China, and that it was intended to surveil us. However, in explaining the balloon posed no serious threat to us -- other than breaching our airspace/pushing the boundaries of our sovereignty -- the DoD goes on to cite an unnamed defense official ... who claims this happened before under DT's administration. The anonymous official says, … [Read more...] about Ex-Trump Officials Refute DoD Claim That 3 Chinese Balloons Flew Here Before

EXCLUSIVE: Russia’s nearly year-long war in Ukraine has claimed the lives of more than 7,000 civilians, including 438 children, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. But the impact of the invasion goes much further than those numbers, of course – the bloodshed has sent more than five million Ukrainians fleeing across the Polish border, reportedly half of them teenagers or younger. Those traumatized Ukrainian teens are the focus of the new documentary Don’t Leave Me Behind: Stories of Young Ukrainian Survival , which will premiere on MTV on February 21, just days before the war’s one-year anniversary. MTV is airing the film commercial-free. “Filmmaker Nathaniel Lezra brings viewers just miles from the Ukraine-Poland border,” MTV said in a statement about the documentary, “where he chronicles the lives of Ukrainian teenage refugees as they process the unimaginable trauma of being displaced from their country and separated … [Read more...] about MTV To Air ‘Don’t Leave Me Behind’ Commercial-Free, Documentary On Teenage Ukrainian Refugees Traumatized By Russian War