Latest news with #Levine
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Maroon 5 star Adam Levine SUED over Instagram post urging fans to give hurricane relief donations
Adam Levine is facing a federal lawsuit over an Instagram post he shared in 2019 urging support for Hurricane Dorian victims. According to court documents, obtained by Billboard, filed earlier this week, the Maroon 5 frontman, 46, allegedly included copyrighted video footage of storm damage in the Bahamas without permission from the owner. The lawsuit, brought by Global Weather Productions LLC, claims Levine used footage taken in the Abacos Islands, one of the hardest-hit areas during the storm, without securing a proper license. The video was originally published on September 3, 2019, by 'professional storm chaser' Michael Brandon Clement and, according to the lawsuit, is owned by Global Weather Productions, a licensing company that has filed multiple similar suits in recent years. Levine allegedly shared the video three days later in a September 6, 2019, Instagram post, which highlighted the devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas and Carolinas. He also urged his followers to donate to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. But Global Weather Productions says the charitable intent doesn't excuse what it views as a clear case of copyright infringement. 'As a musician and author, defendant has significant experience in copyright matters and is familiar with specific practices including the need to ensure that content used in his posts has been properly licensed,' the lawsuit states. 'As a content creator himself, defendant should be particularly sensitive to the unauthorized use of his works.' The company says it made several attempts earlier this year to contact Levine's team in order to resolve the issue outside of court. According to the complaint, Global Weather Productions reached out in April and followed up again in May, but reportedly never received a response. 'Despite plaintiff's efforts and willingness to address defendant's infringing activity, defendant failed to respond, and plaintiff was forced to seek judicial intervention for defendant's infringing activity,' the suit claims. Now, the company is seeking damages that could total up to $150,000 under federal copyright law. Global Weather Productions has filed dozens of similar lawsuits since 2023, targeting both major media outlets, including Reuters, Univision, and NewsNation and public figures such as model Molly Sims. As of now, Levine has not publicly responded to the lawsuit. Daily Mail has reached out to Levine's representatives, but they have not yet responded. In addition to trying to help raise funds for Hurricane Dorian victims, Levine has been involved in various charitable endeavors from supporting youth mental health to U.S. education programs. Earlier this month, he celebrated his 11th wedding anniversary with wife Behati Prinsloo. The couple share two daughters, Dusty Rose and Gio Grace, six, as well as a two-year-old son, whose name has not been publicly revealed.
New York Post
2 days ago
- Business
- New York Post
Mark Levine will reinvest in Israel Bonds as next NYC comptroller — reversing Brad Lander divestment
The leading candidate for Big Apple comptroller says he will reinvest millions of dollars of city pension funds into Israeli bonds — after current Comptroller Brad Lander divested from them. When Lander took office in 2022, the pension funds of city government workers and retirees that he oversees had $39.9 million of assets in Israeli bonds. When the bonds matured, Lander did not reinvest in them, in effect divesting the pension funds from bonds that New York City had invested in since the 1970s. Advertisement Brad Lander did not reinvest in Israeli bonds, despite it being a standard practice by the city since the 1970s Adam Gray for New York Post A campaign rep for Levine — Manhattan's borough president and the Democratic nominee for comptroller and thus likely next comptroller — said his boss will invest in Israel government bonds again if elected. 'We have a globally diversified portfolio, and that should include investments in Israel and Israel Bonds, which have paid solid dividends for 75 years,' Levine had said during the June comptroller primary-race debate with rival and Brooklyn Councilman, Justin Brannan. Advertisement 'We are now the only pension fund in America without that investment,' Levine said at the time. 'I think prudent management for global diversity should include investment in those assets.' Lander was criticized during his mayoral campaign for divesting from Israeli bonds. Foes have noted that he and Israel-bashing socialist buddy Zohran Mamdani cross-endorsed each other in the city's Democratic primary in June — a move that is credited with helping propel the far-left Mamdani well in front of the pack to clinch the party's nomination. Lander recently spelled out his divestment decision in a response letter to First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, who had ripped the divesting. Advertisement Lander had accused prior comptrollers of investing pension funds from unionized workers in Israeli bonds for political reasons, not for prudent returns. The Big Apple first invested $30 million in State of Israel Bonds in 1974 under former city Comptroller Harrison Goldin through its pension funds for educators. 'We are now the only pension fund in America without that investment,' Mark Levine (pictured) said during June's debate. 'I think prudent management for global diversity should include investment in those assets.' Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images 'The decision to invest only in Israel bonds, when the funds held no other country's bonds, and to invest assets intended for short-term cash management in longer-term bond instruments, was a political decision, not a fiduciary one,' Lander said in his July 13 letter. Advertisement 'The City's pension fund holdings of Israel bonds amounted to $39,947,160 at the time I took office in January 2022. In January 2023, those bonds matured, and our office was faced with the choice of whether or not to purchase new ones. We consulted our guidelines and made the prudent decision to follow them, and therefore not to continue investing in the sovereign debt of just one country.' Lander, who is Jewish and a self-described Zionist, added, 'To summarize: We treat investments in Israel as we treat investments in any other country. No better, and no worse. 'The [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] Movement asks investors to treat Israel worse than other countries; I oppose this effort. You appear to be asking that the City's pension funds treat Israel better than all other countries. That would also be politically motivated, and inconsistent with fiduciary duty.' He then accused Mayor Eric Adams of using the city's divestment of Israeli bonds as a 'cynical ploy' in his desperate re-election campaign. But Lander's predecessor as comptroller, Scott Stringer, said Lander was out of line for claiming that Israeli bonds are not a worthy investment. 'Brad got busted for BDS'ing the pension system. He got caught, and now he has to own up to it,' Stringer told The Post. Stringer said he was infuriated with Lander for claiming Stringer and other prior comptrollers invested in Israeli bonds for political, not sound financial, reasons. Advertisement He said Israeli bonds had always been a sound investment and told Lander to 'f–k off. 'If you get busted, you can't be trusted,' Stringer said. Israeli bonds are considered a solid investment, accumulating about 5% returns on average a year, records show. The New York state pension system, run by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, has more than $360 million invested in the Jewish state.
Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- General
- Los Angeles Times
Months after the Jan. 7 fires, L.A.'s evacuation plans remain untested
Just before sunrise on Nov. 8, 2018, a power line fell from a wind-worn Pacific Gas & Electric transmission tower and whipped into the structure nestled in the Sierra foothills. An electric arc sent molten metal into the dry vegetation below. It ignited. Five minutes later, a PG&E employee spotted the fire while driving on a nearby highway and reported it. Within two hours of the sighting, the town of Paradise, seven miles away, sent its first evacuation order, but it was already too late. Within two minutes, flames were reported at the town's edge. Landing embers quickly ignited dozens of spot fires in town. With only four major roads out of town, the streets quickly gridlocked. Paradise burned. Sixty-four people died in Paradise during the agonizing seven-hour evacuation. Six of them were found in or next to their cars as they tried to evacuate. Marc Levine, a state legislator at the time, listened over radio to the horrific scenes of people, stuck in traffic, abandoning their cars to flee on foot. 'It made me think of the people falling from the World Trade Centers on 9/11,' he said. 'They were going to be incinerated or they were going to jump. … They knew they would die either way.' So, Levine wrote legislation requiring California cities and counties to analyze whether their roads could support a quick evacuation during emergencies such as fires, floods and tsunamis. Assembly Bill 747 passed in 2019. Yet, to date, the city of Los Angeles has failed to publicly report such an analysis, while fire safety advocates say L.A. County's evacuation analysis fails to meet the law's requirements. The Times reached out to nearly a dozen city, county and state agencies involved with evacuation planning. All either did not respond to requests for comment, could not to point to an evacuation analysis in line with the state's guidelines for AB 747 or indicated the responsibility for doing the work lie with other agencies. 'The fact that local government leaders would not do as much as they can to protect human life and safety is just shocking to me,' Levine said. In January, the streets of Pacific Palisades mirrored the scene that distressed Levine in 2018. Traffic was at a standstill on Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive — two of the only routes out of the burning landscape. When a spot fire exploded next to the route, police ran down the street, shouting at evacuees to run for their lives. Every year, dozens of evacuations are ordered in California, organized and completed without any casualties — or even a news story. In these cases, public safety officials have all the lead time that they need to organize a safe and orderly evacuation before a fire reaches a community. But it's the much more dire evacuation scenarios — when the lead time is shorter than the time it takes to evacuate, like in the Palisades — where emergency planning is both most important and often ignored. 'There's no incentive to ever present an evacuation plan that isn't very positive,' said Thomas Cova, a professor at the University of Utah who studies wildfire evacuation analysis. 'Why would an emergency planner — say some young upstart in an emergency operation center — ever want to present a plan to their colleagues that involves some people burning?' The chaos of these worst-case scenario evacuations often look nothing like the orderly phased evacuations cities often focus on. Unlike in 'blue sky' evacuations, smoke can hinder visibility and cause crashes. Often whole towns must leave at once. Power outages can prevent public safety officials from communicating with residents. It's why Marylee Guinon — president of the State Alliance for Firesafe Road Regulations, an advocacy group aimed at protecting and expanding the state's community fire safety requirements — suspects AB 747 is facing pushback from local governments. 'They don't want data that would tell them that it's going to be a nine-hour evacuation,' she said. All the while, the risk of fast-moving fires is growing. In a 2024 study, researchers from the University of Colorado in Boulder analyzed more than 60,000 fires documented by NASA satellites in the first two decades of the 21st century. By 2020, fires in California were growing, on average, four times faster than they were in 2001. AB 747 requires local governments to include their evacuation analyses in the safety element of their general plan — the long-term blueprint for future development of a city or county. The city of L.A.'s current safety element provides no such analysis. Instead, it simply lists evacuation planning as 'ongoing.' In a statement to The Times, the city's Planning Department, responsible for writing and revising the general plan, said details of evacuation routes are not made publicly available since 'large urban cities such as the City of Los Angeles are high profile targets for terrorist attacks.' The city did not immediately clarify what legal authority it has to keep the analysis private as California law generally requires safety elements to be public. 'It is a mystery how hiding evacuation route capacity and viability can save lives when community members are fleeing a natural disaster,' Levine said in an email to The Times. 'It is a dubious claim that terrorists could possibly be well positioned to take advantage of such a catastrophic situation.' Meanwhile, the county said it complied through an analysis it included in its 2025 safety element. However, fire safety advocates criticized the county's analysis as simplistic and failing to adequately determine whether quick and safe evacuations are feasible. The Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, which provides guidance on state planning laws, recommended that local governments use traffic software to simulate different evacuations to estimate how long they might take. Instead, the county grabbed a list of all roads in unincorporated areas within its borders and listed them as 'evacuation routes' so long as they were paved, public and not a dead end. The intent of the law is 'not 'just list the roads you have,'' Levine said. 'So I'm super disappointed that L.A. County is dismissive in this way. You would expect, particularly post this year's fires, Palisades and Eaton, they would take this far more seriously.' When pressed on their deviations from the state's guidance, both the city and county planning departments passed the buck to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which indicated in assessments that the two departments' safety elements were compliant. Cal Fire, however, said that its assessments were nonbinding and that complying with the law falls on the city and county. Yet, none of the local or state agencies directly responded to an inquiry from The Times asking them to explain the discrepancy between the guidance and the safety elements. The city and county both have detailed evacuation plans that coordinate how public safety officials in the emergency operations, police and fire departments would orchestrate a mass exodus. However, the analysis of roadway networks to estimate how long those evacuations — even if perfectly orchestrated — may take, is different. 'Historically, fire agencies put forth evacuation plans that are operationally driven,' said retired fire Battalion Chief Doug Flaherty. 'They talk about communications. They talk about unified command. … What is missing is an actual detailed, road-by-roadway capacity analysis of the time that it's going to take for people to safely evacuate the area.' For Guinon, the lack of follow-through from cities and counties across the state is indicative of a common trend in wildfire legislation. 'Virtually every piece of legislation that I dig into, I find out it was the result of a tragic catastrophe,' she said. 'This legislation comes out with really, really clear intent over and over, and then it gets forgotten.' Despite the complexity of simulating cars on a computerized network of roads to understand evacuation times, the scientific prowess exists — and the software to do it is widely accessible. When Flaherty, a Tahoe Basin resident, became frustrated with his area's lack of movement on the issue, he commissioned an evacuation study through his nonprofit, The retired fire battalion chief, with 50 years of emergency response planning experience under his belt, partnered with Leo Zlimen, fresh out of UC Berkeley and co-founder of the emergency management software startup Ladris. 'We fell into this wildfire space because everywhere we looked, people were [asking] 'draw a circle on the map and tell me how long it takes to get those people out,'' Zlimen said. 'And it turns out, that's actually a really complicated problem.' Ladris' software simulates realistic fire evacuations. It starts by taking a map of roads in a community and plopping little purple dots at virtually every home. Each one represents a vehicle. A fire starts on the map. It spreads. The purple dots get orders to flee, and the evacuation starts. The computer can play out a multihour evacuation in mere seconds, and it can account for an excruciating amount of detail. A roadblock, representing a falling tree or car crash, can stop purple dots from using a portion of the road. Some purple dots, not realizing how dire the situation is, wait an extra few minutes — or hours — to evacuate. The dots even wait their turn at stop signs, crosswalks and traffic lights. Ladris' program almost looks like a video game. Officials can test evacuation scenarios far in advance or in real time during an emergency. The company is also working to use artificial intelligence to help quickly configure scenarios so users can almost literally 'draw a circle on the map' and get an evacuation time. Flaherty said his detailed Tahoe Basin study, a comprehensive analysis based on Ladris' simulations, had a price tag just shy of $100,000 — roughly equivalent to the cost of installing one traffic light in town. 'In the scheme of things, it's very cost effective and reasonably priced,' he said. Another piece of software from Old Dominion University — simpler than Ladris' — is available to the public for free. It takes less than half an hour to set up a simulation in the program, called FLEET (for 'Fast Local Emergency Evacuation Times'). Consequently, it's been used not only by local governments making fire evacuation plans, but also by Scouting America troops interested in flood hazards and event planners wondering how bad the postgame traffic may be. Among those using FLEET simulations for evacuation planning: the town of Paradise. After the Camp fire, Paradise became an inadvertent experiment in how towns can better prepare for evacuations. After the disaster, it won a $199-million federal grant for infrastructure projects designed to rebuild Paradise into a more fire-safe town. Before the fire, the town's entire yearly budget was around $12 million. After the Camp fire, Paradise hired a traffic consulting firm that used FLEET. It found an evacuation would take over five hours under perfect conditions while utilizing all traffic lanes. It then used the modeling to understand what could be done to alter traffic flow to reduce that time. For Paradise — as is the case for many towns — a big problem is traffic bottlenecks: To evacuate, virtually the entire town has to use one of four main roads. The seemingly most straight-forward solution? Build more roads. However, these projects get complicated fast, said Marc Mattox, Paradise's public works director and town engineer. Often the roads that a municipality needs to improve evacuation would have to go through private property — a nonstarter for residents in the proposed path. Or, it's simply too costly. Although Paradise has received funds to widen two evacuation routes and connect three dead ends with the rest of town, a new evacuation route out of town would be prohibitively expensive. Mattox estimated such a route, navigating Paradise's steep ridges and canyons, would cost in excess of half a billion dollars. So, Paradise has also invested in a much cheaper, yet still effective tool to speed up evacuations: clear communication. Paradise installed signs all over town that proclaim when residents enter and exit different evacuation zones. The town is also looking into using a different color sign for private or dead-end roads that warn drivers to avoid them, as well as digital signs above key roadways that can display real-time evacuation information. In Southern California, Malibu — which completed an evacuation analysis after it suffered the Woolsey fire the same day as the Camp fire — has similar plans. Malibu is adding reflective markers to roadways to reduce the chances of crashes amid thick smoke. For neighborhoods with few evacuation routes and individuals with limited mobility, the city encourages evacuating whenever the National Weather Service warns of dangerous fire weather — well before a possible ignition. Los Angeles is much bigger than Malibu and Paradise — L.A. has a population of 3.9 million; Paradise's is just over 9,100. But evacuation experts said it's no excuse for letting California's rural towns take the lead on evacuation planning. Asked whether the sprawling labyrinth of L.A. roads would make doing these analyses more difficult, Zlimen smiled. 'Not really — no,' he said, noting Ladris has completed analyses in the San Francisco Bay Area. 'It's totally possible.' Guinon hopes the results of evacuation analyses can also help — or force — cities to make more responsible residential development plans in the first place. 'It's not rocket science,' she said. 'Let's just take on protection of our existing communities and let the chips fall where they may with new development: If it's unsafe, don't build it.'
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Adam Levine Reveals How Blake Shelton Pranked Him When He Was First Dating Wife Behati Prinsloo
When Adam Levine first started dating his now-wife, model Behati Prinsloo, he wanted to woo her with a special present. So, he enlisted the help of his The Voice costar, Blake Shelton — rookie mistake. While serving as the guest on the Thursday (July 3) episode of Hot Ones, the Maroon 5 frontman revealed how the country star hilariously pranked him early on in his relationship with Prinsloo. 'My now-wife, then brand-new girlfriend, she said she really wanted a teacup pig,' Levine told host Sean Evans. More from Billboard Adam Levine Confirms New Maroon 5 Album, Single & Tour on 'Tonight Show': 'The Rumors Are Correct' Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan Cover Blink-182's 'All The Small Things' at Festival d'été de Québec Kesha Is Finally Free on First Independent Album 'Period': Stream It Now 'And I didn't know what that was, but of course, the first person I would ask …,' he continued, referencing Shelton's farming background. 'So, I asked Blake, I'm like, 'What's a teacup pig?' He's like, 'I'll get you a teacup pig. Yeah, give me five grand.'' Levine handed over the money, emphasizing to Shelton that he wanted a pig that would stay small and not grow to the size of a normal pig. Shelton returned with a piglet that the 'Moves Like Jagger' singer then gifted to Prinsloo, but the setup 'probably lasted like three weeks' before the couple got tired of the pig's incessant squeals and gifted it to a little girl. When that girl sent them photos of the pig six months later, revealing that it had grown to be 'like, 400 pounds,' Levine says he realized that Shelton had knowingly given him a standard pig — not a 'teacup' pig as he'd asked. 'I'm just like, 'Blake, bro, $5,000 for a pig that wasn't a micro pig?'' Levine recalled, laughing. 'And he's like, 'You're an idiot! There's no such thing as f–king teacup pigs you dumba–!'' Levine continued. 'So that was a pretty good prank that he played on me.' The 'God's Country' singer and Levine served as coaches together on The Voice for 16 seasons, starting when the show first debuted in 2011, and pranked each other often on the NBC competition. Luckily, Shelton's piggy prank didn't impact Levine's relationship; the Maroon 5 singer and Prinsloo would go on to tie the knot in 2014 and welcome three children together in the years after that. As his kids are growing up, Levine — who will drop new album Love Is Like with his Maroon 5 bandmates in August — is now having fun coaching their youth basketball team. 'My worst quality [as a coach] is I get hotheaded,' he told Evans. 'And these kids are children. They're eight years old. But when the refs are sleeping, man, I'm like, 'Come on!'' Speaking of being hotheaded, Levine definitely felt the heat on Hot Ones. He started by warning viewers that he gets 'really deep sweat' under his eyes — 'That's going to be really attractive to share with everybody,' he quipped — many bites of chicken after which he started perspiring profusely from his lower lids, dabbing at them furiously with his napkin. 'Here it comes,' he said, gesturing to his face shortly after trying a bit of the absurdly spicy Da' Bomb hot sauce. Watch Levine's full Hot Ones episode above. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Adam Levine & Behati Prinsloo Celebrate 11th Anniversary: ‘My Person for Life'
Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo have officially hit the 11-year mark in their marriage, and both parties are celebrating the milestone in style. In separate Instagram posts Saturday (July 19), the Maroon 5 frontman and model gushed about their love for each other to commemorate the occasion. Sharing a photo of his wife rocking a white cowboy hat while enjoying a drink outdoors and petting a dog, Levine wrote, 'Happy anniversary to my favorite person in the world.' More from Billboard Adam Levine Reveals How Blake Shelton Pranked Him When He Was First Dating Wife Behati Prinsloo Mariah Carey 'MC16' Album Details Coming Tomorrow Fans Choose BTS' 'Permission to Dance On Stage' Live Album as This Week's Favorite New Music Prinsloo posted several photos of herself and Levine over the years, writing, 'My person for life!!! 11 years today! @adamlevine deep sea baby….' The snaps show Prinsloo and her husband at different stages in their relationship, from riding in the car together in their younger years to posing in photo booths and kissing on the water with a massive yacht in the background. The pair first met in 2012 and tied the knot on July 19, 2014, with a ceremony in Mexico. Levine and the Calirosa Tequila founder have since welcomed three children together, sharing 9-year-old daughter Dusty Rose, 7-year-old daughter Gio Grace and a 2-year-old son. Shortly before their third little one arrived in January 2023, the musician was accused of cheating on his wife with Instagram model Sumner Stroh, who shared screenshots of alleged flirty messages between herself and Levine. The three-time Grammy winner went on to apologize for his actions in a statement on Instagram Stories, clarifying that he had not had an affair, but acknowledging that he 'used poor judgement in speaking with anyone other than [his] wife in ANY kind of flirtatious manner.' Three years later, the couple is still going strong. And in a recent appearance on Hot Ones, Levine shared a hilarious memory from early on in his relationship with his partner, recalling how Blake Shelton tricked him into handing over $5,000 for a nonexistent 'teacup pig' as a gift for Prinsloo. Maroon 5 are gearing up to release their Love Is Like album on Aug. 15, which Levine recently revealed will contain features from Lil Wayne and Sexyy Red; so far they're released two singles ahead of the 10-track album, 'All Night' and 'Priceless' with BLACKPINK's LISA. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart Solve the daily Crossword
