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TOKYO (AP) — An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northernJapanon Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there.

The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches.

Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, speaking to reporters, urged residents in the affected area to confirm their designated shelters and evacuation routes and to check emergency food and grab bags so they can run immediately when the next big one hits. “The government will do our utmost in case of an emergency,” she said.

It was the second such advisory for the region in recent months.One was issued following a 7.5-magnitude quake in Decemberbut no mega-quake occurred.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said one person in Aomori, north of Iwate, was injured after falling Monday.

Still, Monday's earthquake and tsunami warning were a reminder to the quake-prone area of the March 2011 disaster that ravaged large swaths of the northern coast, triggering a nuclear crisis in Fukushima.

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The quake occurred off the coast of Sanriku at around 4:53 p.m. (0753 GMT) Monday, at a depth of about 19 kilometers (11 miles), the meteorological agency said.

Footage on NHK television showed hanging objects swaying and people squatting at a shopping center in Aomori, as authorities told people to seek higher ground and stay away from coastal areas.

Shinkansen bullet trains connecting Tokyo and northern Japan were suspended, leaving passengers in cars and on platforms waiting for service to resume.

A tsunami of about 80 centimeters (2.6 feet) was detected at the Kuji port in Iwate prefecture within an hour of the quake, and a smaller tsunami of 40 centimeters (1.3 feet) was recorded at another port in the prefecture, the meteorological agency said.

The U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later said the tsunami threat “has now passed.”

The Nuclear Regulation Authority said nuclear power plants and related facilities in the region were intact and no abnormalities were detected.

The disaster management agency said at one point, more than 170,000 people in five northern prefectures from Hokkaido to Fukushima were advised to take shelter.

It's 15 years sincea magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunamion March 11, 2011, ravaged parts of northern Japan, causing more than 22,000 deaths and forcing nearly half a million people to flee their homes, most of them due to tsunami damage.

Dan Vladar made 27 saves and Garnet Hathaway had a goal and an assist as the visiting Philadelphia Flyers topped the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-0 on Monday to take a 2-0 lead in their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series.

After squeaking out a 3-2 victory in Game 1, the Flyers once again outplayed the favored Penguins. Rookie Porter Martone scored for the second straight game, and Luke Glendening added an empty-net goal.

Vladar logged his first shutout since joining the Flyers last summer -- and his first career blanking in the playoffs.

Stuart Skinner turned aside 20 shots for Pittsburgh, which will arrive desperate for a victory when the teams reconvene in Philadelphia for Game 3 of the best-of-seven series on Wednesday. Sidney Crosby led the Penguins with four shots but was held without a point for the second straight game.

"You got to focus on the next one. Win or lose, that's always the approach. But given the fact that we lost two here, we've got to find a way to take Game 3 and get some momentum back," Crosby said.

The Flyers committed three minor penalties in the first period but still held the Penguins to two shots in the session. Philadelphia also didn't do much on offense, managing just five shots in the opening 20 minutes.

Philadelphia opened the scoring on Martone's second of the playoffs with 6:21 left in the second period. Travis Konecny's shot was blocked in front and caromed right to Martone, who deposited a backhander into a vacated net for a 1-0 lead.

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Martone, 19, became the sixth-youngest player in NHL history to score a goal in each of his first two career playoff games.

Shortly thereafter, Glendening -- one of the team's top penalty-killers -- was in the box when the Flyers scored a short-handed goal to make it 2-0. Owen Tippett won a puck battle along the boards, made a couple of nifty moves and slipped a pass across to Hathaway, who rammed it past a helpless Skinner.

Holding a two-goal lead, the Flyers squandered two terrific scoring opportunities down the stretch. With about 13 minutes left in the contest, Skinner stoned Glendening on a 2-on-0 short-handed breakaway. Then about three minutes later, Tippett was awarded a penalty shot when he was hooked on a breakaway, but he shot wide on the ensuing attempt.

Tippett stressed the importance of staying even-keel despite the advantage the Flyers now hold in the series. "We're excited to get home to our fans, back home in our rink, but we can't get too high, can't get too low," he said. "Obviously coming in here, to a building like this, and taking the first two games - it's huge."

Vladar's highlights included a stop on Samuel Girard from point-blank range early in the third period and a flashy glove save on Evgeni Malkin's redirection with 7 1/2 minutes to go.

Glendening's empty-netter with 2:05 left put an exclamation point on the victory.

--Field Level Media

Stephen Colbert's The Late Show on Wednesday included a sketch with the host and The Daily Show's Jon Stewart selling memorabilia.

Key Points

• Colbert called it Late Show Home Shopping, and it really exists.

• The last episode is scheduled to air May 21, after CBS announced in July that this was the show's final season.

Stephen Colbertis preparing for the end.

On Wednesday, he and a very recognizable guest,The Daily Show'sJon Stewart, teamed up for a sketch advertising areal charity auctionofLate Showprops and merch before the series airs itsfinal episodeMay 21.

The funny guys sported floral leisure wear as they showed off some of the items up for big event. Colbert did, at least once, require a big gulp of whatever he was drinking from his branded coffee mug.

When Stewart suggested they start bidding for the item at $20, Colbert hilariously spit out the drink in Stewart's face and said there was "no way" they could start bidding so high. Stewart took a swig from his own mug, but Colbert suggested they lower the price to $19.99, which he called "actually a tremendous value."

And the items actually are for sale, with some of them going for a much higher price.

For example, the red carpet that guests walked on as they walk onto the set, as well as a wig that had belonged to Stewart was up to $5,600.

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At one point, Colbert teased a T-shirt that reads "The Last Show" in the font ofThe Late Show, which Stewart got so excited about that he poured his mug on top of his head.

Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with ourEW Dispatch newsletter.

One of the bigger items: theLate Showsign, which hung in the studio, accompanied by signed mugs from Colbert and Stewart. The bidding for it was up to $10,100 late Wednesday.

Several of Colbert's neckties were among the other items.

In his monologue, Colbert also sent a box labeled "Iran War jokes" to his colleague Jimmy Kimmel, after noting that he was beginning to wonder if U.S. involvement there would be over by the time he left.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbertairs at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly

Cryptocurrency billionaire Justin Sun is suingWorld Liberty Financial,a crypto venture co-founded by President Donald Trump and his sons, alleging the company illegally blocked him from selling digital tokens worth up to $1 billion.

Thelawsuit, filed on Tuesday in California federal court, also accuses World Liberty Financial of trying to pressure Sun into investing "hundreds of millions of dollars to mint USD1, World Liberty's stablecoin." The complaint alleges that the company froze his World Liberty Financial tokens after Sun refused to commit more money to the business.

Sun also alleged that World Liberty Financial secretly changed contractual rules governing when owners of its tokens could sell their holdings, giving the company "blacklisting power" over who could transfer the tokens.

"There was no governance proposal (let alone a vote of token holders) on whether World Liberty should have this power, nor did World Liberty announce to token holders what the company was doing. World Liberty simply took the power for itself," the complaint alleged.

World Liberty Financial co-founder and CEO Zach Witkoff dismissed Sun's allegations as "entirely meritless."

"Justin Sun's recent lawsuit against [World Liberty Financial] is a desperate attempt to deflect attention from Sun's own misconduct," Witkoffwroteon social media on Wednesday. "He engaged in misconduct that required World Liberty to take action to protect itself and its users. World Liberty will continue to take all necessary steps to protect its community."

The litigation threatens to chill Sun's relationship with President Trump. The entrepreneur, best known as the founder of blockchain company Tron, revealed last year that he was the largest holder of another Trump-backedcrypto token, dubbed $TRUMP.

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"Fraudulent scheme"

In a social mediaposton his rationale for the lawsuit, Sun said he remains a supporter of Mr. Trump and blamed "certain individuals" for the alleged issues.

"They wrongfully froze all of my tokens, stripped me of my right to vote on governance proposals, and have threatened to permanently destroy my tokens by 'burning' them — all without any proper justification," he wrote. "I do not believe President Trump would condone these actions if he knew about them."

Sun's complaint also accused World Liberty Financial executives, including co-founder Chase Herro, of seeking to "leverage the Trump brand" to illegally drive profits.

"Even though Mr. Sun was one of World Liberty's anchor investors and biggest supporters, that did not stop Mr. Herro and the company's other principals from making Mr. Sun a prime target of their fraudulent scheme."

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STANLEY, N.M. — More than two decades after she was sexually abused at Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch, Rachel Benavidez is still waiting for someone to be held responsible for crimes there.

She is amongat least 10 girls and young womenwho have alleged they were groomed or assaulted at Zorro Ranch, Epstein’s gated compound, beginning in the late 1990s. Benavidez and others said they were lured by promises of money or career help, then found themselves trapped, surrounded by miles of dry grassland with no neighbors in sight. They said they were groped, forced into nude massages, assaulted with sex toys, raped. They overcame paralyzing fear to share their ordeals again and again. And yet authorities have never fully investigated what happened at the ranch.

“Until we are heard, until survivors are heard and believed, then I don’t think there’s ever going to be any justice,” Benavidez, 52, said in a recent interview, her first since the Justice Department in Januaryreleased millions of documentsthat brought renewed attention to Epstein’s activities at the ranch, and missed opportunities to investigate them.

For more on this story, watch “Hallie Jackson NOW” onNBC News NOWtoday at 5 p.m. ET.

The disclosures, including an unsubstantiated anonymous claim that two “foreign girls” died during sex and were secretly buried on the property, prompted state authorities to launch new investigations this year — a criminal case led by the New Mexico Department of Justice and a “truth commission” led by the state Legislature.

Benavidez says she would willingly tell investigators what she endured. Even though Epstein is long dead and his chief accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in prison, Benavidez says more people need to be held accountable.

“I don’t think it’s too late for the truth to come out about people that were involved and helped him and turned a blind eye to his crimes,” Benavidez said. She has not publicly shared names.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he is committed tofinishing an investigationthat should have been done years ago. His officesearched the ranchin March, the first time law enforcement had done so. And he promised to give survivors a safe place to share their experiences.

“We are going to do everything we can to get to the bottom of what happened there, follow every lead, no matter how uncomfortable it is or how long it takes, and most importantly, we need to center the voices of victims in this process,” Torrez told NBC News.

New Mexico has long been treated as an undercard in the Epstein saga, although allegations of abuse there date nearly as far back as allegations in Florida and New York.

He bought the ranch in 1993 and visited several times a year, often with girls or young women. In 2008, he pleaded guilty in Florida to paying underage girls for sex and cut a deal with prosecutors that spared him serious jail time and ended a more expansive federal investigation that included New Mexico. In 2019, federal authorities in New York arrested him on a new set of charges that did not mention New Mexico. The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office opened its own investigation of Epstein that year, but stopped at the request of the prosecutors in New York, ultimately sending them the case file.

Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, who led the 2019 investigation, said he expected the prosecutors in New York to share evidence that could be used to charge Epstein with state crimes, but he heard nothing from them — not after Epstein was found dead in a jail cell in August 2019, nor after they secured a conviction of Maxwell in December 2021.

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Like the sweetheart deal two decades ago in Florida, the missed opportunities in New Mexico represent “a black eye in the justice system,” Balderas said. “Not everybody’s case gets reviewed the same, and sometimes law enforcement and prosecutors don’t do a good job at sharing information and working together to get the conviction.”

Torrez said he has asked the Justice Department for unredacted copies of documents in the Epstein files that mention Zorro Ranch. The Justice Department said it welcomed the new investigation and was ready to provide help.

Benavidez, a New Mexico native, first came to the ranch in late 1999 when she was a 22-year-old newly licensed massage therapist. She said she was hired first to massage Maxwell, and later Epstein. She recalled the beauty of the landscape as she drove to the ranch, which felt intimidating and isolating. In an FBI interview, she described passing through security and driving a winding dirt road to a mansion where she descended into a basement-level massage room, passing pictures of topless women.

At first, Benavidez said, Epstein and Maxwell seemed like eccentric rich people with powerful connections who paid good money and could help her find more opportunities. Her impression darkened as Epstein’s massages turned aggressively sexual; Benavidez said he raped her. Ashamed and scared, she said nothing. When she tried to turn down requests to return, Epstein’s staff pushed her until she relented.

Benavidez said that for a while she thought she was the only one being abused at the ranch. “When I would go out there and I would see all these girls who I thought were Victoria’s Secret models, there was no way he was doing that to them,” she said.

This went on for two years. She stopped going to the ranch when Epstein asked her to sign a nondisclosure agreement, but the abuse haunted her, sending her adrift. For a long time, she blamed herself.

She kept the assaults a secret until Epstein’s 2019 arrest, when more victims began speaking publicly. When she came forward, she met many of the others, including five “survivor sisters” whom she leans on for support. “They helped me to carry the weight of this very heavy issue. Without them, I couldn’t do this,” Benavidez said.

She has given interviews and talked to the FBI. The trauma, however, never goes away.

Benavidez now works as a hospice nurse, a job she loves, and she does not want to let Epstein take her attention away from her patients.

She still speaks because she wants to be part of an effort to expose Epstein’s enablers.

“I know that there’s co-conspirators, and there’s people even that I have not named, that I believe were involved and knew what was going on,” Benavidez said. “So I hope that they find the truth so those people can be brought to justice and prosecuted.”

Hallie Jackson reported from Stanley and Jon Schuppe from New York.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call theNational Sexual Assault Hotlineat1-800-656-4673. The hotline, run by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), can put you in contact with your local rape crisis center. You can also access RAINN’s online chat service athttps://www.rainn.org/get-help.

Coachella 2026took place onApril 10-12and17-19and was headlined bySabrina Carpenter,Karol G, andJustin Bieber.

While the first weekend went smoothly, Justin Bieber’s performance in the second weekend racked up asignificant penalty feefor the Coachella organizers because of arule imposedby thecity of Indio.

At the same time, many netizens who were upset about the tickets and food prizes at Coachella being allegedly too high dismissed the situation with lighthearted jokes.

“So a round of drinks will cover the fines,” one user said.

Organizers were fined $44,000 for Anyma and Justin Bieber’s Coachella sets

Image credits:Getty/Kevin Mazur

Co-founded by Paul Tollett and Rick Van Santen in 1999, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is held annually at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, and is organized by Goldenvoice, a subsidiary of AEG Worldwide.

Image credits:Coachella

An agreement Goldenvoice has with Indio requires performances to wrap up by 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, and by midnight on Sunday. Breaching of this rule results in a straight $20,000 fine for the first five minutes of delay, and an additional $1,000 per minute from the sixth minute onward.

Image credits:Getty/Kevin Mazur

Anyma (real name Matteo Milleri), an Italian-American musician and one of the duo Tale of Us, performed on Friday, April 17, atCoachella 2026, after his first weekend set was canceled due to severe weather.

His set went nine minutes past the cutoff time, costing the organizers $24,000.

On Saturday, April 18, Justin Bieber went two minutes over while performing theheadlining set, which featured a special appearance from Billie Eilish. It added another $20,000 to the weekend 2 fines.

A representative for the city of Indio confirmed the numbers toTMZ.

Image credits:Getty/Kevin Mazur

The money from these fines goes to Indio’s General Fund and is used to fund the city’s expenses, such as public works, the police, and fire departments.

Coachella has been hit with huge curfew fines in the past few years

Image credits:Coachella

Justin Bieber was not the firsthigh-profile artistto cost Coachella in fines.

Indio’s current contract with Coachella was signed in 2013 and runs through 2050. Under the previous contract, the fine for breaking the curfew rule was $1,000 per minute flat.

The regulation cost Goldenvoice $54,000 in 2009, when Beatles legendPaul McCartneyplayed 54 minutes over the scheduled time.

The Killers also played an extra 30 minutes that same year.

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The organizers were forced to pull the plug during The Cure’s set, who started a new song at around 12:30 a.m.

Image credits:Coachella

“The music is supposed to end every night at midnight,” Commander. Ben Guitron from Indio police said after the incident, according toNBC Washington. “How Goldenvoice addresses our concerns is up to them.”

He added that the police were not physically involved in shutting down the event.

In 2023, Coachella missed the curfew on both weekends, with six performers going over the cutoff time, includingBad Bunny, Frank Ocean, and The Weeknd.

Image credits:Instagram / ldr.isart

It cost the organizers $117,000 in fines in the first weekend and $51,000 in the second, totaling $168,000 for the whole event.

In 2024, Lana Del Rey’s performance continued for 13 minutes after 1 a.m., resulting in$28,000 in finesfor the organizers.

Justin Bieber dedicated a special performance to Billie Eilish

Image credits:Getty/Kevin Mazur

As part of his 2026 Coachella set, which included karaoke-style renditions of his old hits, Justin Bieber performed his 2009 hit trackOneLessLonely Girl.

During the song, he invitedBillie Eilishup from the audience to be serenaded — a throwback to his early tours when he would do the same with fans.

Visibly emotional, Eilish sat in a chair, smiling and holding her head in her hands as he sang to her. They quickly hugged after a while before she ran back into the crowd.

Afterward, Eilish shared an Instagram story of her face with red andteary eyesand the caption, “Can’t stop crying.”

Image credits:billieeilish

Eilish’s mother, Maggie Baird, shared an Instagram post that revealed that it was Justin’s wife,Hailey Bieber, who encouraged and prompted her to go onstage.

“One of the most touching moments ever,” Baird wrote. “Watching this crazy, unimaginable dream come true over many years is so incredible.”

She also thanked Justin and Hailey for their kindness.

Eilish has been a fan of Justin Bieber since ayoung ageand famously had posters of theBabysinger in her teenage bedroom.

Their first public meeting at Coachella 2019 went viral when Bieber approached her duringAriana Grande’s set, and the two shared an embrace.

“Long and bright future ahead of you,” Bieber later wrote about Eilish on his Instagram.

“$40K is nothing to them.” The internet shared reactions to Coachella getting fined for Justin Bieber’s performance

Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida faces a critical moment in her political career Tuesday as the House Ethics Committee weighs what punishment to recommend for25 violations of House rules and ethical standards, including breaking campaign finance laws.

Republicans are alreadycalling for the expulsion of Cherfilus-McCormick, who is in her third term and is running for reelection in a southeastern Florida district.

She is also facing federal criminal charges accusing her of stealing $5 million in coronavirus disaster relief funds and using the money to buy items such as a 3-carat yellow diamond ring.

Cherfilus-McCormick has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges and denies the ethics violations.

The allegations against the congresswoman center on how she received millions of dollars from her family’s health care business after Florida mistakenly overpaid the business by roughly $5 million with COVID-19 disaster relief funds. She is accused of using that money to fund her 2022 congressional campaign through a network of businesses and family members.

Cherfilus-McCormick declined to testify during a previous Ethics Committee hearing, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Her attorney, William Barzee, sparred with some of thelawmakersand argued that they should have allowed a thorough ethics trial, at which he could present witnesses and evidence to counter the conclusions of House investigators.

A group of supporters in Cherfilus-McCormick's congressional district have weighed in on her behalf with the lawmakers who lead the Ethics Committee. They noted that the committee's decision could leave hundreds of thousands of people without representation in Congress during an important time in their state, and they urged committee leaders to proceed with caution.

“Our communities deserve stability. Our voices deserve to be heard. And our right to representation must be protected,” said one of the letters sent to the committee signed by about a dozen local faith leaders, union officials and others.

In all, the panel's two-year investigation led to the issuance of 59 subpoenas, 28 witness interviews and a review of more than 33,000 pages of documents.

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Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, has said he will move to expel Cherfilus-McCormick once the Ethics Committee makes a determination on what punishment it will recommend.

That move could in turn prompt Democrats to seek the expulsion of Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican who is the subject of a wide-ranging investigation by the Ethics Committee that includes whether he violated campaign finance laws, misused congressional resources and engaged in sexual misconduct or dating violence. That investigation is ongoing. Mills has denied any wrongdoing.

The focus on lawmaker wrongdoing comes just one week after two lawmakers resigned during ethics investigations into alleged sexual misconduct. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California and Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas headed off possible expulsion votes with their resignations.

House Democratic leaders have declined to condemn Cherfilus-McCormick, saying they wanted to see the ethics process play out.

Potential punishments include a reprimand or a censure, which serve as forms of public rebuke. The committee could also recommend a fine. The most severe form of punishment is expulsion, but the House has historically been reluctant to serve as the final arbiter of a lawmaker’s career, preferring to give that final say to the voters.

Only six members of the House have been expelled. The first three fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and were expelled for disloyalty. The next two had been convicted of crimes.

The final one wasGeorge Santos, the scandal-plagued freshmanwho was the subject of a blistering ethics report on his conduct as well as federal indictment. Santos, a New York Republican, served time in prison for ripping off his campaign donors before President Donald Trump granted him clemency, and he has apologized to his former constituents.

Under the Constitution, at least two-thirds of the House has to vote for expulsion for it to occur, a high threshold that requires enormous bipartisan support.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters last week he believes the House will move to expel Cherfilus-McCormick.

“The facts are indisputable at this point, and so I believe it’ll be the consensus of this body that she should be expelled,” Johnson said.