Kermit the Frog delivers inspiring commencement remarks to University of Maryland graduates: ‘Stay connected to your dreams'
The world's most famous — and articulate — amphibian had an inspiring message for University of Maryland's graduating class of 2025.
'Stay connected to your dreams — no matter how big, no matter how impossible they seem,' Kermit the Frog said during the school commencement ceremony Thursday.
3 Kermit the Frog speaks during University of Maryland's commencement ceremony on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
AP
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'Dreams are how we figure out where we want to go. And life is how we get there,' he told a cheering crowd.
3 'Stay connected to your dreams – no matter how big, no matter how impossible they seem.'
via REUTERS
The legendary frog was tapped for the job in honor of his late 'Muppets' creator Jim Henson, who is an alumnus of the college.
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3 'The Muppets' creator, Jim Henson, is an esteemed alumni of the University.
AP
'An honor and joy to celebrate our graduating class with KermitTheFrog!,' Darryll J. Pines, President of University of Maryland posted on X Thursday. 'His message of finding community, taking leaps together and making connections was an inspiration to us all.'
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New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Sean ‘Diddy' Combs and his victim hired porn stars for ‘freak-offs,' flew them cross-country, she says — and reveals how much they got paid
Sean 'Diddy' Combs and his one-time influencer girlfriend hired two porn stars for numerous 'hotel night' sex sessions, according to testimony. REUTERS Jane — Combs' girlfriend until his 2024 arrest — said that starting around late 2021 and early 2022, she started to try choosing the men she slept with during her and the Bad Boy Records founder's 'hotel nights,' aka 'freak-offs.' Jane reached out to the men on separate occasions after watching their adult films with the 'I'll Be Missing You' rapper, she told the jury. REUTERS She booked flights for one of the men, whose screen name is 'Sly,' from his home in Atlanta to Los Angeles or New York for 'hotel nights,' for which she paid him around $2,000 to $4,000, Jane testified. Later, Jane started hiring another porn star, 'Antoine,' for 'hotel nights,' she said.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Latest: Combs' ex-girlfriend sobs while recounting ‘hotel nights' that lasted for days
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean 'Diddy' Combs ′ recent ex-girlfriend, testifying under the pseudonym 'Jane,' sobbed on the witness stand Friday while describing their many drug-fueled sex marathons, saying he ignored her when she signaled that she wanted to stop and chided her for crying after one of the encounters. The Latest: Lawyer asks judge to crack down on people who are trying to reveal Jane's identity Jane's lawyer Lindsay Lewis spoke up during a break in testimony while the jury was out of the courtroom. She said some media outlets and social media accounts have or are attempting to reveal Jane's identity. Judge Arun Subramanian didn't immediately act on Lewis' request. He asked her to send him any examples of concerning posts. Subramanian noted that there's little he can do about members of the public doing their own sleuthing to figure out Jane's identity based on what she's said on the witness stand. The judge previously warned reporters and members of the public observing the trial not to describe Jane in detail. He's also told sketch artists not to draw her. Jane was heartbroken when Combs flew to the Caribbean with another woman Soon after co-opting her birthday into a 'hotel night' in 2023, Combs jetted off to Turks and Caicos with another woman, Jane said. She told jurors she saw Instagram posts of Combs and the woman in the Caribbean archipelago, where they spent some of their earliest times together. 'It broke my heart because I just finished my birthday with these guys having sex with me,' Jane testified. Combs was planning the trip during her birthday celebration, which involved her having sex with three men, she said. In a text message, she told him: 'It feels like you used me to get off and then go away for a week.' Jane wrote a frustrated note to Combs but never sent it Irritated with the imbalance of their relationship, Jane poured her thoughts into the Notes app on her phone in November 2021, drafting a message to Combs but never sending it. 'I don't know what you're calling me for, but I'm sorry I don't want to do drugs for days and days and have you use me to fulfill your freaky, wild desires in hotel rooms,' Jane wrote in the unsent missive. Jane said she was tired of waiting for Combs to fulfill promises he'd made to her, such as date nights, togetherness, quality time and doing things she wanted to do — not the 'hotel nights' that had come to dominate their relationship. Jurors hear audio of Jane confronting Diddy about another woman In November 2021, Jane confronted Combs about cheating on her after she saw Instagram posts from a woman who was at his Miami-area estate. In an audio recording played in court, Combs explained that the woman had come to his house to work out. But Jane didn't buy that and responded that the woman had been there for days. Jane said she'd known that Combs was seeing other women, but the Instagram postings reinforced for her that he was giving another woman quality time she yearned for. She said she felt used, telling jurors that at the time she thought: 'It's not me that he wants. It's these nights.' Afterward, Jane said, Combs called her on FaceTime and calmed her down, repeating a pattern she said happened each time she objected to continuing with 'hotel nights.' Jane says the sex marathons caused her to suffer from back pain and UTIs Jane wiped away tears as she recounted the many ill-effects of 'hotel nights,' including constant back pain, frequent urinary tract infections and soreness in her genitals and pelvic areas. Combs' former longtime girlfriend, Cassie, testified she also suffered UTIs after enduring hours of sex during sex marathons involving Combs and male sex workers. Both women testified they were made to have sexual encounters before they were fully recovered from UTIs. Jane is shown photographs of herself and male sex workers during 'freak-offs' The images were not shown to the courtroom audience or on monitors in overflow courtrooms, in keeping with the judge's order barring evidence from being displayed to reporters and the public while Jane testifies. Jane says she arranged some of the 'hotel night' sex marathons Sometimes, it was a surprise to keep Combs happy, Jane said. Other times it was because he demanded it, she said. 'I knew it was to be expected,' she testified. 'He expected me to coordinate a night where we had an entertainer join us.' Combs would often ask for 'hotel nights' in a roundabout way, Jane said, relying on a type of code they'd developed. 'He didn't have to directly, specifically tell me to do things,' Jane said. 'If he said, 'I can't want to see what you have for me,' or something along those lines, I knew what task was being asked of me.' Jane felt obligated to continue doing 'hotel nights' for Combs Jane recalled another occasion where she told Combs she wasn't interested in sexual encounters with other men. On a trip to New York in 2023, she said she told him, 'I didn't want to do it anymore, these nights with these men.' Combs didn't listen, she said, and they proceeded with the encounter. Jane said she objected again in a subsequent conversation and Combs told her she didn't have to engage in such sexual encounters anymore. But Jane said she felt obligated. Just a few months earlier, she had moved into a home that was paid for by Combs. Jane told jurors she was apprehensive about going to New York in the first place because she worried Combs was trying to set up a 'hotel night.' Sure enough, on the flight, she said she received a text message from Combs asking: 'Do you want entertainment tonight?' Jane's testimony resumes Jane, who had been crying steadily when a lunch break was taken, returned composed to the witness stand after the hour-long break. The jury was brought into the Manhattan courtroom shortly afterward. And the prosecutor, Maurene Comey, resumed her questioning, which began Thursday. Immediately, Comey confronted her with a picture of one of the male sex workers. Jane says her longest 'hotel night' lasted three and a half days Cassie, Combs' girlfriend from 2007 to 2018, testified during the trial's first week that her hundreds of marathon 'freak-off' sessions with Combs and a male sex worker usually spanned multiple days in which she and Combs used drugs to stay awake. Jane testified Friday that her longest 'hotel night' with Combs and a male sex worker was three and a half days, while most went 24 to 30 hours. Jane said she relied on ecstasy to dull her senses. 'I just feel like I had to take them. When I wouldn't, it would feel too real, like the atmosphere,' Jane said. 'And I didn't want to feel like it was too real.' In a parallel to Cassie's testimony, Jane recalls how Combs ruined her birthday Jane said Combs brought her to have sex with sex workers on her birthday in 2023, even though she was hoping for time alone with Combs. Jane said she wasn't interested in having her birthday subsumed by Combs' fantasies. She said she turned into something of a robot, telling jurors, 'I would just tune out and kind of get like in a zone.' Jane said Combs' mood soured when she asked for a condom for the sex worker to use. Afterward, Jane said, Combs took her to another hotel suite, where he was loving and gave her cake and flowers. But then, Jane said, another male sex worker came into the suite. When they were finished, Jane said, a third man entered the room. It was 'just hours and hours of that,' Jane said. Combs held sex marathons just weeks before his arrest, Janes says Combs was continuing to have so-called 'freak-off' sex marathons as federal investigators were closing in on arresting him last year, Jane testified Friday. Jane said she was involved in sexual encounters with male sex workers at Combs' Miami-area estate as late as last August, just weeks before his arrest at a Manhattan hotel. Jane estimated there were about five such encounters between February 2024 and his arrest last September. None of them were in hotels, a frequent venue for activities she dubbed 'debauchery' and 'hotel nights.' Federal agents raided Combs' home on ritzy Star Island, along with his home in Los Angeles, in March 2024. Prosecutor focuses on allegations of sex trafficking and forced labor Prosecutor Maurene Comey has been deftly mixing in questions for Jane that cut to the heart of the case, including charges of sex trafficking and forced labor. As Jane was describing her many 'hotel nights' with Combs and paid sex workers, Comey asked her, 'who did the most work' during those encounters. 'It was all me, from just start to finish,' Jane testified. When asking Jane about recruiting a sex worker, Comey underscored the geographic scope of the alleged crimes. Jane testified that she'd booked flights to Los Angeles and New York for the Atlanta-based sex worker. One of Combs' charges is interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution. Later, Comey asked Jane about transporting drugs across state lines for Combs. Jane says she was Combs' drug mule on at least two occasions Jane described how she nervously smuggled pills in her checked luggage on commercial flights from Los Angeles to Miami. Jane said both times Combs asked her to 'pick up a package' at his Los Angeles mansion and bring it with her when she visited him at his Miami-area estate. Jane testified that she wasn't comfortable with the request, but Combs' chief of staff Kristina 'K.K.' Khorram told her: 'It's fine, I do it all the time.' Jane said she delivered the drugs to Combs and ended up using some of the drugs with him. Jane says Combs pressured her to continue having sex, even after vomiting Combs pledged to get clean from drugs in 2023, Jane said, but first wanted to have another of their 'hotel nights,' dubbing it a 'sobriety party.' Jane testified that she typically took drugs to get through the encounters, but abstained that night in a Beverly Hills hotel room as Combs ingested ecstasy and cocaine. After having back-to-back sex with two sex workers, she said, she felt sick and vomited in the bathroom. Jane said Combs came in and told her: 'That's good. You'll feel better now that you've thrown up. So let's go.' Jane then went back to the party and had sex with a third man, she said, telling jurors she was 'repulsed' and 'deeply regretted' doing it. 'I hated it so much,' she said. Prosecutor zeroes in on the control Combs had over Jane One of the prosecution's central arguments is that Combs coerced women to submit to his sexual fantasies by using his fortune to make them reliant on him. To bolster that claim, Prosecutor Maurene Comey had Jane read aloud texts in which she complained to Combs that it seemed that 'hotel nights' were 'the only reason you have me around and pay for the house.' She said in the messages that she was 'doing things that make me disgusted with myself.' Still, she expressed her love for Combs, saying in the messages that 'my heart is really in this and it's breaking.' By September 2023, Combs had been paying Jane's rent for about five months. Comey asked Jane what she feared would happen if she stopped doing hotel nights. 'That he would take it away, that Sean would take the house away,' Jane responded. It was then that Comey asked her how Combs responded to her messages. 'He said: 'Girl stop,'' Jane answered. Combs taps his fingers as Jane sobs As Jane broke into sobs talking about how she 'just really wanted my partner to get sober' when she tried to do a 'hotel night' without drugs in October 2023, Combs tapped his fingers against one of his legs, occasionally glancing toward the jury or his lawyers and away from Jane. Jane texted Combs that she wanted to stop having 'hotel nights' Jane tried to put an end to so-called 'hotel nights,' texting Combs in 2023 that she longed to return to the early days of their relationship, before the drug-fueled encounters started to dominate their time together. Jane told Combs that she felt obligated to perform for him and that she regretted ever getting involved in the encounters, writing: 'ever since I opened Pandora's box, I haven't been able to close it.' 'I don't want to keep feeling like that,' she wrote, telling Combs that she wanted them to 'talk like adults and figure out where we're going from here.' Combs responded: 'Girl, stop.' Jane sometimes leaned into Combs' fantasies even though she 'didn't like them' Jane acknowledged sending sexually explicit text messages to Combs between their hotel encounters, telling jurors she wanted to convey her love and interest in having sex with him — not strangers. At times, she said, she did lean into his fantasies, sending graphic messages describing what she said she wanted to do with sex workers while Combs watched. On the witness stand Friday, she said she sent those messages because she wanted to make him happy. In reality, she said, she wanted the encounters to stop. 'I didn't like them,' she said. 'I was realizing this was becoming the dynamic of what we were.' Jane says Diddy stopped condom use during 'hotel nights' Jane testified that Combs intervened to stop a man she identified as Don from using a condom, even after she requested it. The moment was captured in audio played for the jury. She said it happened during their first 'hotel night,' which Combs had arranged, and that he blocked condom use again in a later encounter. Jane testified that Combs 'guilt tripped me out of it. It wasn't something he wanted to see.' Prosecutors play audio of 'hotel night' encounter. Later, Jane breaks down sobbing Prosecutors played an audio tape in which Jane asked a man to wear a condom who was about to have sex with her. It was the first time jurors in the trial, now in its fourth week, heard any recording from what Jane has called 'hotel nights' and what Cassie called 'freak-offs.' During hotel nights, a male sex worker would have sex with Jane while Combs watched, according to testimony. Later in the testimony Friday morning, Jane broke into sobs as she described crying on two occasions during 'hotel nights' with Combs. In tears, Jane says Diddy ignored her resistance to group sex Jane wept as she told jurors how Combs ignored her 'subtle cues' that she wanted to stop engaging in sex acts during their drug-fueled 'hotel nights.' She said she'd tell him she was tired or hungry or make gestures and facial expressions indicating that she didn't want to continue. Combs, she said, would tell her to keep going and 'finish strong.' Asked by a prosecutor why she didn't tell him directly that she wanted to stop, Jane said, 'I just, I don't know,' as she cried loudly. Jane's second day of testimony starts with sexual topics Comey, the prosecutor, questioned Jane about sexual subjects right from the start on Friday, beginning with a trip Jane said she took with Combs to Las Vegas in 2023 when they had a 'hotel night' with an 'entertainer.' The prosecutor asked Jane if Combs ever used the word 'freak' with her. Jane said he would say 'he wants his freak.' She said she understood that to mean 'he wanted me to be wild and sexual.' Jane's description of 'hotel nights' has closely paralleled Cassie's earlier testimony about 'freak-offs' she had with male sex workers, under Combs' direction. Jane returns to the courtroom Jane is back to resume her direct examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey. The jury has entered the room. Combs, wearing a dark sweater on Friday, is conversing with his lawyers and writing notes. The judge gave prosecutors a small victory prior to the resumption of testimony when he ruled that statements Jane made that cast a disparaging light on the sexual performances she endured during her three years of dating Combs can be used during her examination. Defense lawyers had argued they should be inadmissible. But the judge said the opening statement by the defense opened the way for admission of the exhibits because the defense asserted that Jane was a willing participant and that sexual activities were all consensual. Judge meets with attorneys before jury arrives As he has throughout the trial, Judge Arun Subramanian is meeting with prosecutors and defense lawyers in the courtroom on Friday before the jury is brought in so disputes about evidence can be settled. The judge also discussed efforts to improve the ability of Combs to communicate with his lawyers from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he has been held since his September arrest. The Associated Press
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Judge says Weinstein juror complaining about jury strife cannot be excused
By Jody Godoy NEW YORK (Reuters) -The judge overseeing former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein's rape and sexual assault trial refused on Friday to dismiss a juror who said some jurors were treating others on the 12-person panel unfairly. "I just don't think it's fair and just," the juror told New York Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber in court, referring to things other jurors were saying and doing behind another juror's back. "There is a bit of a shunning happening," the juror said. The juror asked to be dismissed but Farber said there was no legal basis to do so after the juror confirmed that no one on the jury panel was pressuring him to change his view of the case. "If any other juror feels they need to talk to me, they can," the judge said. Weinstein's lawyers said they would make a proposal on how to address the matter later on Friday. Friday was the second day of jury deliberations. No other jurors were present during the exchange. Farber dismissed alternates from the jury on Thursday. Weinstein, 73, was convicted of rape by a Manhattan jury in February 2020, but the New York Court of Appeals threw out the conviction and ordered a new trial, citing errors by the trial judge. Prosecutors say the Academy Award-winning producer raped aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013 and assaulted two other women in 2006 and 2002. Weinstein, who has denied ever having non-consensual sex or assaulting anyone, has pleaded not guilty. He faces up to 25 years in prison for two counts of criminal sexual acts and up to four years for one count of rape. Weinstein is already serving a 16-year prison sentence after being found guilty in December 2022 of rape in a separate California case. Prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have portrayed Weinstein as a serial predator who promised career advancement in Hollywood to women, only to then coax them into private settings where he attacked them. Weinstein's defense lawyers have said his encounters with the women were consensual and accused them of lying about being raped after failing to make it big in Hollywood by sleeping with him.
