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Brooke Shields Rocks Some Truly Surprising Footwear To Tonys, And We're Here For It

Senior Reporter

Brooke Shields was walking on sunshine at Sunday night’s Tony Awards.

While the “Suddenly Susan” star glowed in her yellow Monique Lhuillier gown, it was her very practical footwear that stole the show during the event at New York’s Lincoln Center.

Underneath her chic daffodil-hued dress, Shields sported a pair of matching Crocs.

Proud to show off her casual kicks, the veteran actor pulled up her dress to reveal the Swiss cheese-inspired clogs.

Adding some extra oomph, she styled the look with a boxy gold clutch, matching bangles and a pair of pearl earrings.

Shields, who just a day earlier revealed she had undergone surgery on both feet, told People magazine that opting for comfy shoes was a must for the event.

“I got my Crocs!” she said. “I couldn’t do this in heels!”

During her red carpet moment, Shields took time to celebrate the theater world and everything it has done for her.

“Broadway welcomed me when nobody else was welcoming me,” she told People. “I started going to Broadway when I was a little, little girl, so to me it’s a part of my life.”

Over the years, the talent has appeared in Broadway productions of “Wonderful Town,” “Chicago,” “Cabaret” and “Grease.”

Shields has also branched out from the bright lights of Broadway’s biggest theaters.

Last year, she produced the one-woman cabaret “Previously Owned by Brooke Shields” during a limited engagement at Manhattan’s Café Carlyle.

Check out HuffPost’s red carpet wrap for more fabulous looks from the 2024 Tony Awards.

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Woman Gets Life Without Parole After Cutting Pregnant Neighbor's Baby From Womb as Victim Was Alive

Brooke Crews was sentenced on Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for her role in the grisly death of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind

A Fargo, North Dakota, woman was sentenced on Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for her part in the grisly death of a pregnant neighbor , who was killed after her baby was removed from her womb, PEOPLE confirms.

At the afternoon hearing for Brooke Crews, prosecutors shed light on the final moments in the life of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, a 22-year-old who had dreamed of becoming a registered nurse and who was eight-months pregnant when she was killed in August.

Miraculously, her child survived the attack with minimal physical trauma . The baby is now in the custody of her father, who was LaFontaine-Greywind’s boyfriend.

The details released in court on Friday were the first significant new information in months in a case that has made international headlines.

Prosecutors said at the sentencing that Crews, 38, admitted she cut LaFontaine-Greywind’s infant daughter out of her body in a kind of crude caesarean section, the state’s attorney’s office in Cass County, North Dakota, confirms to PEOPLE. The attack occurred on Aug. 19, not long after Crews lured the younger woman to her third-floor apartment in the building where they both lived, according to prosecutors.

Cass County prosecutor Tanya Martinez told the court that the defendant said she pushed LaFontaine-Greywind after some kind of altercation and LaFontaine-Greywind hit her head, rendering her unconscious.

According to fellow prosecutor Leah Jo Viste, Martinez then said in court that Crews told police, “I grabbed either a utility knife or a blade” — and, as LaFontaine-Greywind was drifting in and out of consciousness, Crews removed her child from the womb, prosecutors said.

“I did cut [LaFontaine-Greywind] and then I took her baby out of her,” Martinez said that Crews told police.

Then Martinez quoted Crews as saying that LaFontaine-Greywind “was not dead when I cut the baby out of her.”

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Crews also told police that when LaFontaine-Greywind’s body was located, Crews knew she would be found “sliced hip to hip,” Martinez said in court.

Prosecutors did not specify when or where LaFontaine-Greywind died.

Ashton Matheny , LaFontaine-Greywind’s longtime boyfriend and the father of her child, 5-month-old Haisley Jo, told PEOPLE in December that he feared Crews had cut their daughter out of LaFontaine-Greywind.

His suspicions were confirmed on Friday. “Right now my mind’s kind of paralyzed,” he told reporters after the hearing. “[I] don’t know how to process it honestly. I don’t think I ever will, because they took the love of my life away. She [Crews] stripped my future away from me.”

Crews was found with LaFontaine-Greywind’s daughter in Crews’ apartment on Aug. 24, leading to her arrest, as authorities still searched for the missing woman.

Eight days after vanishing — and three days after Crews and her live-in boyfriend, William Hoehn, were taken into custody — LaFontaine-Greywind’s body was discovered wrapped in plastic and duct tape in the Red River in the Fargo area.

Matheny, 22, had to leave the courtroom when Crews began speaking during Friday’s hearing, a source tells PEOPLE. He attended the sentencing with Haisley Jo.

Dressed in red to honor murdered and missing indigenous women — LaFontaine-Greywind was Native American — her friends and family were also in court.

Before she was sentenced, Crews apologized to LaFontaine-Greywind’s family. “I’m just really, really, really sorry,” she said, according to the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead . “I wish I could take their pain. I wish I hadn’t done this. There is no excuse. There is no rationalization. There is nothing. I know it doesn’t help, but I am sorry.”

Crews’ attorney, Steven Mottinger, declined to comment to PEOPLE, but he had asked for his client to be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, the Associated Press reports .

“Acceptance of responsibility is important,” Mottinger said. “It has to mean something.”

LaFontaine-Greywind’s mother, Norberta Greywind, also addressed the court, saying their family had to move from Fargo after her daughter’s slaying.

“I miss her laugh. I miss her so much,” she reportedly said. “My heart is literally broken. I find myself looking through pictures and videos. Brooke Crews befriended us. She was monitoring our daily routine. I still have nightmares. I cannot accept that someone had done this to my daughter. For someone to do this to another human is beyond evil.”

“The pain and void my granddaughter will have to carry for the rest of her life breaks my heart,” Greywind said. “Haisley will never feel that love from her mother.”

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Crews pleaded guilty on Dec. 11 to three charges: conspiracy to commit kidnapping, conspiracy to commit murder and giving false information to the police. She had not reached a deal with prosecutors but changed her plea, her attorney said at the time, in hopes of getting a more favorable sentence.

Crews’ boyfriend, the 32-year-old Hoehn, was arrested on Aug. 24 on the same charges. He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a May trial.

On Thursday, the day before Crews was sentenced, Matheny told PEOPLE he was apprehensive about attending the hearing: “I don’t know what I’m going to do or say or feel when I see Brooke in court.”

He said, “I am hoping for the best — and hoping for the worst for Brooke.”

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Court reporters cruise together

By Charisse Kitt

The African American Court Reporters set sail this summer aboard the Carnival Sensation, leaving out of Miami, Fla., sailing to the Bahamas, Half Moon Cay, and Grand Turk.

Planning began after the NCRA Convention in New Orleans in 2018. So much fun was had that we decided the time was now; that in 2019 we were going to go on vacation together, whether there were two of us or 100. 

Members of the AACR are Kirstie Anderson; Charisse Kitt, RMR, CRI; Lori Kidd-Ceasar; Angie Murphy-Grant; Irony Senegal; Shaunise Day; Mekailah McChriston; Shelley Duhon, RPR; Kairisa Magee; Susan Watts, RPR; Nataly Bermejo; Diane Cuttino Salters, RPR; Jeaninn Alexis; Erica Jones; Janyce Booth, RMR, CRR, CRC; Shacara Mapp; and Margary Rogers, RPR, CRI.

After the convention, Kidd-Ceasar took the bull by its horns and began looking into cruises. We thought a cruise would be a great first-time vacation for all of us to do together. You have the best of both worlds, all you can eat – especially pizza – entertainment, and island hopping, for an affordable price.

In September 2018, we had the itinerary available, and in October the first deposit was due. This gave everyone an opportunity to make payments over the next eight months. When May rolled around, we had a total of 21 people: Sixteen court reporters – two of them brought their brave husbands along – two students, and a close friend. We even had mother and daughter court reporters. One couple was celebrating their seven-year anniversary; the other couple was celebrating their recent nuptials.

Everyone came from different states: New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, D.C, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Illinois, Texas, and California. There were veteran court reporters, new-to-the-field court reporters, officials, freelancers, CART providers, and software trainers. We had it all!

Every night we had dinner together, even the poor husbands! Can you imagine what the discussion for those poor men was like at the dinner table with 18 court reporters! We let them chime in a time or two. Some of us were longtime friends, having met over the years at NCRA conventions, and some of us met for the first time on the cruise. How awesome is that!

Different themes for different days were planned for the cruise, and hashtags were created for posting to social media. We had T-shirts made for when we boarded the ship that said: “AACRs Rock the Boat .” We had an all-white night, where everyone dressed in white. We even did a swimsuit photo shoot at Half Moon Cay. For the Captain’s dinner, we dressed up and took a professional picture, which everyone received on the last night, thanks to Lori. We danced, sang, gambled, laughed, even shed a few tears together. No stone was left unturned.

Although we were on vacation, is there ever a time where so many court reporters can be together for that long, six days and five nights, without learning something? Well, this trip was no different.  That’s right, you guessed it! Carnival was kind enough to let us use one of their rooms to have a seminar. So for four hours, on our only sea day, we did just that. I held a punctuation seminar, along with tips for passing the RPR Written Knowledge Test for all, and then we split up for Case Catalyst and Eclipse Training. The great Roz DiBartolo was the Case Catalyst trainer, and I was the Eclipse trainer. Everyone walked away thankful, having more knowledge than when they boarded the ship – an added bonus to our first of many vacations.

This vacation far exceeded everyone’s expectation. None of us could have ever imagined how insightful, spiritual, and inspirational it would be. Everyone played an intricate part in making this vacation a success. We all were very thankful that we could come together, learn together, and have a great time together. We were brought together through court reporting, but the bond and sisterhood created from this trip will last each and every one of us a lifetime. We truly rocked the boat.

Charisse Kitt, RMR, CRI, is an official court reporter from Somerset, N.J.

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Warship’s visit to Cuba was intended to deter Russia, says minister

Canadian navy patrol boat HMCS Margaret Brooke passes by Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine Kazan and frigate Admiral Gorshkov as it enters Havana’s bay in Cuba on June 14. Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

The Defence Minister is defending the recent deployment of a Canadian warship for a friendly port visit to Cuba at the same time that Russian naval vessels were present there, framing it as an act of deterrence against Moscow.

Last week, the Canadian Joint Operations Command’s account on X announced Friday’s Havana port visit by HMCS Margaret Brooke as an effort to recognize “the long-standing bilateral relationship between Canada and Cuba.”

But Defence Minister Bill Blair said Monday that “presence is deterrence. We were present,” offering a new justification for the port visit.

“The Canadian ship visited Havana to demonstrate Canada’s presence, naval capability and commitment to safe and open waters in the Americas,” he told reporters.

He added that the port visit, which lasted until Monday, was the product of “a request that was made to me by the commander of Joint Operations Command, and the admiral in charge of the Royal Canadian Navy.”

The Globe and Mail asked the Department of National Defence to explain how Canadian sailors spent their time in Havana’s port, but it did not immediately provide details.

News coverage of the Canadian coastal patrol vessel’s appearance in Havana captured it sharing anchorage there with a flotilla of Russian warships that had been conducting military exercises in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Russian vessels had been dispatched to Cuba after a warning from President Vladimir Putin that Moscow might arm countries to hit Western targets, in response to Ukraine’s allies allowing Kyiv to strike targets inside of Russia.

Russian warships leave Havana’s port after five-day visit to Cuba

Canada had also deployed a ship and surveillance plane to help the United States track the Russian flotilla as it headed to Cuba. These included the HMCS Ville de Québec frigate and the CP-140 Aurora surveillance plane.

Hundreds of Cubans are reportedly fighting for Russia in its war on Ukraine, although Havana has publicly disavowed this recruitment.

Cuban-Canadian Michael Lima Cuadra, a historian and democracy activist, said Canada’s decision to stage a port visit in Havana, a measure normally reserved for countries with friendly ties, sends a confusing message about where Ottawa stands.

He argued that a Canadian military ship visiting a Cuban port helps legitimize the Cuban armed forces. There are good reasons for Canada to instead shun Cuba, he said, given its detention of political prisoners and growing ties with Russia.

“Cuba is more repressive today than decades ago and has the highest number of political prisoners in the Americas, and its inner power circle actively collaborates with regimes like Putin’s in the asymmetric war against Ukraine – in its propaganda efforts, diplomatically and militarily,” Mr. Lima Cuadra said.

Cuba, facing economic difficulties owing to factors such as decades of embargo by the U.S., has strengthened its relationship with Russia after Moscow’s all-out 2022 assault on Ukraine. In November that year, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel visited Moscow where he, together with Mr. Putin, unveiled a monument to Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, pledging to deepen their friendship in the face of U.S. sanctions against both countries.

The Associated Press reported last year that China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019, as part of a global effort by Beijing to upgrade its intelligence-gathering capabilities. The news service cited an anonymous member of U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration as its source.

Mr. Blair’s office Monday said that the Defence Minister did not consider Cuba an ally.

Nevertheless, relations between Cuba and Canada have warmed under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He visited the island in November, 2016, and when Mr. Castro died later that month, he issued a statement celebrating the authoritarian leader as a “legendary revolutionary and orator” and “larger than life leader who served his people.”

Prisoners Defenders, a human-rights advocacy group, said in a May, 2024, report that political prisoners in Cuba numbered 1,113.

Conservative defence critic James Bezan said in a Monday statement that it was “incomprehensible and bewildering” that the Trudeau government dispatched a warship to Cuba for a port visit when Canada’s military is “straining to meet basic operational needs and our naval ships are struggling to remain afloat.”

With files from Reuters and the Associated Press

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Yankees' Gerrit Cole cruises in first rehab start at Double-A

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. -- Gerrit Cole did not have any trouble finding adrenaline in his first minor league appearance in eight years Tuesday night.

It was coursing through the New York Yankees ace as he made his first rehab appearance since being sidelined with nerve irritation and edema in his right elbow in mid-March, starting for the Double-A Somerset Patriots in front of a standing room only crowd.

Cole channeled that energy into an encouraging return to game action, holding the Hartford Yard Goats scoreless over 3⅓ innings. The right-hander allowed just two singles, didn't surrender a walk and faced one batter over the minimum. He threw 45 pitches, 34 for strikes, on a night he was slated to toss 40 to 50.

Asked if there was anything he didn't like about the outing, Cole's answer was simple: "No."

The reigning American League Cy Young Award winner said he was happy with "really everything" about the outing. He threw his entire repertoire for strikes. His fastball sat between 94 and 97 mph. He bemoaned leaving soft two breaking pitches over the plate, but that was about it a month to the day after he first threw off the mound following the injury.

Cole is expected to make another start for Somerset on Sunday. After that, he isn't sure.

"Definitely close," Cole said of coming off the injured list to pitch for the Yankees. "I'm not sure how many more we need, but definitely closer rather than farther away. It should be right around the corner here."

Speaking after the Yankees' 5-1 win over the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night, manager Aaron Boone said he caught a couple innings of Cole's start before first pitch and "thought he looked really sharp."

"Just as far as command of the fastball and getting to where he wanted to get the swing and miss," Boone told reporters in New York. "So the 15 or 20 pitches that I saw looked like Gerrit. He looked sharp. Another encouraging step. We'll see how we get through these next several days."

With his appearance, Cole, 33, became the highest-profile player to play for Somerset in the team's short history as the Yankees' Double-A affiliate, which began in 2021.

The atmosphere reflected the moment for this minor league baseball outpost in central Jersey. The team announced a sellout of 8,260, the largest attendance for the franchise since it became a Yankees affiliate. Fans streamed into TD Bank Ballpark long before first pitch. Most were on hand to cheer for Cole when he first emerged onto the field in uniform, wearing his customary No. 45, to play catch before warming up in the bullpen.

"I thought it was really fun overall," Cole said. "It was a nice environment. It felt really great to get back out there and get back in the flow of things."

Cole took the mound at 6:31 p.m. Four minutes later, he fired his first pitch in a minor league game since July 2016: a fastball fouled off for strike one. Hartford leadoff man Adael Amador lined the next pitch, a curveball, to right field for a single.

Amador later stole second base without a throw and took third on a groundout. He was left stranded there as Cole struck out Yanquiel Fernández swinging at a fastball to end the 10-pitch inning.

Cole threw 15 pitches in each of the next two frames. He retired the side in order in the second, which ended with a nine-pitch battle with catcher Braxton Fulford. He surrendered a one-out single in the third to Braiden Ward -- a line drive up the middle, close enough to Cole to deliver a scare.

The Yard Goats then gave Cole some help: Amador, upon striking out swinging in his second at-bat, was called for batter interference for impeding catcher Ben Rice's throw to second base on Ward's steal attempt.

Cole, who completed the third inning with 40 pitches, emerged for the fourth, striking out Sterlin Thompson with a high fastball out of the strike zone. The five-pitch at-bat concluded Cole's night.

Cole fist bumped each Patriots infielder and tapped Rice on the chest before walking off the mound to a standing ovation. He saluted the crowd and acknowledged the home plate umpire.

Afterward, Cole said he had more in the tank, but the plan was the plan. And on Tuesday, the plan was a rousing success.

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