This Summer Will Be Different has gained a couple more cast members.

Netflix has announced that Francesca Reale and Roby Attal have joined the cast of the upcoming TV adaptation of author Carley Fortune's bestselling romance novel.

Reale is set to play Bridget in the show, while Attal will take on the role of Felix, who also goes by the nickname Wolf. They join the previously announced star Sophie Nélisse, who is set to play Lucy.

This Summer Will Be Different will be "a simmering, sun-soaked romance set across multiple summers on Prince Edward Island about Lucy, a young woman navigating her 20s and her first real love with her best friend’s brother, the one person she was never supposed to fall for," according to the show's logline.

Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart serve as the adaptation's creators and showrunners. They also both executive produce the show alongside Fortune.

This Summer Will Be Different will film on location in Prince Edward Island and in Toronto. It will span 10 episodes.

“I fell in love with Prince Edward Island first in the pages of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and again when I visited with my best friend in my early 20s,” Fortune told Netflix. “That vacation, the beauty of the island, the warmth of its people, and the friendships that sustain us are the foundation of This Summer Will Be Different. I’m thrilled to bring this sweeping love story to the screen with Netflix and to transport audiences to the glittering shores and windswept beaches of PEI.”

Reale is known for her appearance in the third season of Stranger Things. Attal was most recently seen in recurring roles in Dexter: Original Sin and The Sex Lives of College Girls.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) -- Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened on Friday to strip states of federal election-related aid, and to possibly seek criminal penalties against election officials, if they don't comply with the administration's voting roll probe ahead of the midterms.

Mullin told reporters that if states want to continue to receive federal reimbursement "to run federal elections," they must now cooperate with DHS's efforts to "scrub" their voter rolls and update the security of their election systems.

"We're saying that the machines had to be secure, and that your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed," Mullin said in a news conference.

It was not immediately clear what grants or funding could be in jeopardy for non-compliant states. DHS has previously threatened to withhold Federal Emergency Management Agency counterterrorism grants unless states complied with election security mandates.

"If states want the grant funding, to recap, they must secure the election," Mullin said.

Mullin's news conference came one day after President Donald Trump's primetime speech on elections, in which he announced he was declassifying a slew of documents he claims reveal vulnerabilities in America's elections systems and foreign interference, particularly by China.

Mullin, who was sworn in as DHS secretary on March 24, claimed America's adversaries have the "key to the back" of American voting machines, alleging that bad actors could change the registration of voters -- and even manipulate votes that have already been cast.

But Mullin offered no evidence that foreign vote manipulation has occurred, nor did he elaborate on how it is possible.

Mullin also argued, as Trump did on Thursday night, that America's elections are also vulnerable because of noncitizen voters being on the voter rolls.

A DHS report released overnight alleged more than 250,000 noncitizens are on voter rolls in four states.

Mullin did not provide more information on how DHS arrived at the claim that 250,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada, saying only it was pulled from public voter records.

The Department of Justice attempted to compel states to turn over their voter files, and sued more than two dozen that refused to do so. But courts have thrown out those lawsuits across the board, saying the DOJ lacks a compelling reason for the data.

Mullin said it would be a "little bit tougher" to obtain data from those states.

He said DHS will continue to comb through voter rolls in search of noncitizens and others ineligible to vote, and threatened them with jail time and or financial penalties.

"We will scrub all election records, looking for illegal aliens and those who are ineligible to vote, including those that somehow voted, yet they were deceased," Mullin said.

"If you're illegal and attempted to vote, or you tried to vote illegally for someone else, we will find you, and we will charge you," Mullin continued. "Illegal voter restoration and illegal voting both carry penalties up to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. We will pursue maximum pressure on this."

The secretary said election officials would be held "accountable" if they don't comply and that the penalties would be extended to them.

"If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even depending on how far it goes, prison time," he said.

Mullin said DHS will look into the integrity of both early voting and post-Election Day votes during this November's midterm elections.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) -- Newly-declassified documents touted by President Donald Trump during his address on election security Thursday cast doubt on some of his claims about "shocking vulnerabilities" in the country's election infrastructure.

While Trump claimed during his address that the nation's election systems are vulnerable to "hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference," the intelligence reports released by the White House concluded overall that the main infrastructure used to conduct elections in the United States "would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to alter the election outcome."

"Great damage has been done to our country. Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost," Trump said, without providing evidence.

'Difficult to manipulate at scale'

The documents noted that although some internet-connected election infrastructure -- like voter registration databases and pollbooks -- are vulnerable to cyberattacks, the systems used to tabulate, transmit, and display election results cannot be manipulated on a wide scale, and audits and paper trails "would uncover such efforts in the nearly all U.S. states."

"We assess that hostile actors could also manipulate systems that count or tabulate votes -- such as voting machines -- on a localized basis, but it probably would be difficult to coordinate a campaign to alter voting results on a wide scale," said an August 2020 report from the National Intelligence Council. "Similarly, foreign actors would have difficulty coordinating a large scale campaign to manipulate mail-in voting, and robust postal tracking probably would detect any large-scale effort."

The report concluded that cyber attacks could potentially delay voting but "probably would not affect the integrity of certified results."

While another report said that foreign adversaries such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea "have the capability to access and potentially manipulate data in U.S. election-related computer systems," the report did not identify "specific plans to interfere with the functioning of these systems" or past instances when results were changed due to the actions of foreign actors.

"We assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results," said a January 2020 report from the National Intelligence Council.

"Although an adversary could manipulate voting results across multiple jurisdictions and enough states to influence a presidential election, we judge that conducting such a campaign would be difficult and that postelection audits and paper trails very likely would uncover such an effort," that report said.

According to the August 2020 report from the National Intelligence Council, the only country that was observed attempting to target or manipulate election systems during the 2020 election was Russia, which used "a range of measures primarily to denigrate former Vice President Biden" and share largely favorable information about President Trump.

'Delays on Election Day'

According to the National Intelligence Council's January 2020 report, the systems vulnerable to disruption are official election websites or registration databases -- which are often publicly accessible -- or poll books, which are used by election officials to look up eligible voters.

The report said that bad actors could "alter data to potentially prevent individual voters or groups of voters from voting, causing delays on Election Day or forcing voters to use provisional ballots" -- but those actions wouldn't affect the votes themselves.

"We assess that cyber operations targeting the electronic tabulation of results could delay results reporting from affected jurisdictions, potentially creating public uncertainty but probably not affecting the integrity of certified results," the report noted.

According to a 2026 report from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, election-related software is "subject to the same security concerns as most other software systems." The report called for election officials to be transparent about issues to improve public trust.

"By openly acknowledging incidents and describing mitigation steps, vendors and localities can show that they are proactively defending critical infrastructure rather than obscuring vulnerabilities. This transparency encourages continuous improvement, drives investment in stronger defenses, and reinforces that protecting elections is a collective national priority," the report said.

'Russia, China, Iran'

A January 2020 memo from the National Intelligence Council warned that countries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea "have the capability to access and potentially manipulate data in U.S. election-related computer systems" -- but a subsequent report said such manipulation would be hard to do on a widespread basis.

"We judge that Russia, China, Iran, as well as many nonstate actors, have the capability to conduct such activities, although it would be difficult for them to manipulate voting processes at scale and without detection," the report said.

Russia and China have pushed back against those claims.

The January 2020 report noted that Russia "almost certainly" surveyed election networks in 2016, accessed election infrastructure in two states, and exfiltrated voter data from one state.

According to the August 2020 report, Russia sought to amplify discord in the United States ahead of the 2020 election, spread false claims about then-candidate Joe Biden, and boost positive information about Trump.

The 2020 CIA memo noted that China probed presidential campaigns in every election since 2008 to get insights on U.S.-China issues.

According to the memo, the intelligence community detected Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors specifically targeting the Biden campaign "to gather intelligence that could enable future operations."

"The IC assesses that China does not currently intend to covertly interfere to try to sway the outcome of the election, although this activity could enable such operations," the report said.

An August 2020 report from the National Intelligence Council concluded that China "did not intend to try to affect the election" though it "prefers that President Trump be defeated."

"We assess that China prefers that the President whom Beijing sees as unpredictable and tough on China does not win reelection," the report said.

However, an October 2020 memo noted the overall intelligence community believed that China considered but did not deploy influence efforts for the upcoming 2020 election. The memo said that Chinese leadership believed Trump appeared likely to lose and that "there is little point to taking the risk of an influence effort because they believe their preferred outcome is probable."

"As early as [REDACTED] this year, Chinese [REDACTED] assessed that the pandemic and economic downturn had diminished the President's reelection prospects and since then Beijing has been planning for either electoral outcome and conducting outreach to both candidates and their campaigns, [REDACTED]," the memo said.

The August 2020 report noted that Iran "is conducting an influence campaign to undermine the current President and US democratic institutions, and to divide the country in advance of the 2020 elections."

However, the report noted that Iran is focusing on covert online influence -- such as sharing memes and recirculating news reports that are critical of Trump.

"Iran could attempt to manipulate or attack election infrastructure as it has in elections in the Middle East and South Asia -- but we do not have any information indicating that it intends to do so in the United States," the report said.

'An election outside of Venezuela'

The release of documents included a CIA assessment from June 2026 summarizing the last two decades of intelligence related to Venezuela's manipulation of voting systems, following longstanding claims by Trump's far-right supporters of Venezuela's involvement in 2020 election interference.

The memo said that Venezuelan government officials developed the capability to manipulate electronic voting systems in their own elections, including replicating and overwriting voting data to make fraudulent votes legitimate.

However, the report noted that the intelligence "did not definitively confirm that large-scale electronic fraud was successfully executed in specific Venezuelan elections."

Notably, the report noted that there was no evidence that the Venezuelan government was able to manipulate election results outside of their own country, because their ability to rig elections "rested in part on its ability to control every stage of the electronic voting process."

"Neither [the voting machine company] Smartmatic nor the Venezuelan Government had the capability -- that is the level of control or access required -- to manipulate the outcome of an election outside of Venezuela in a predictable fashion," the report said.

'False narratives'

In addition to assessing technological vulnerabilities in the election system, a newly-declassified memo from the National Intelligence Council explicitly raised concerns about adversaries exploiting most Americans' lack of knowledge about voting systems to "undermine confidence in U.S. democratic processes."

"Much of the voting public probably knows little about the process of administering U.S. elections, which could allow false narratives to gain traction," said the January 2020 memo.

The memo noted that efforts to "publicly invalidate such claims could take weeks or months" and that "disproving claims would also be impossible if adversaries evaded U.S. intelligence collection."

"A widely publicized compromise of election infrastructure probably would undercut public confidence in the election, even if the compromise was not used to manipulate election-related data or systems," the memo said.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The upcoming God of War series will recast the actor playing its lead role of Kratos.

Prime Video confirmed the news to ABC Audio on Friday. Ryan Hurst, who was the original actor cast as Kratos, was seriously injured while on set of the video game TV adaptation in late June. The actor tore a bicep while performing a stunt on the show.

After careful consideration, Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios made the decision to recast the role. Production on God of War paused immediately after Hurst's injury. It remains on pause.

While recovery time for such an injury is unclear, it would likely not have been safe for Hurst to resume filming until 2027. This led to the decision to recast his role. Additionally, the show's co-lead, Atreus, is played by child actor Callum Vinson. Much of the existing footage will need to be reshot as Vinson is growing and changing each day.

Production started on God of War back in February. It's based on the popular ancient mythology-themed Playstation video game and has already received a two-season order from the streamer.

The storyline for the upcoming series follows "father and son Kratos and Atreus as they embark on a journey to spread the ashes of their wife and mother, Faye," according to an official synopsis from Prime Video. "Through their adventures, Kratos tries to teach his son to be a better god, while Atreus tries to teach his father how to be a better human."

Also starring in the show are Mandy Patinkin as Odin, Ed Skrein as Baldur, Max Parker as Heimdall, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Thor, Teresa Palmer as Sif, Alastair Duncan as Mimir, Jeff Gulka as Sindri and Danny Woodburn as Brok.

Deadline was the first to report the news.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Brenda Fricker, an Oscar-winning actress also known for a memorable role in Home Alone 2, has died, according to her agent. She was 81.

Fricker's agent Phil Belfield confirmed Fricker died Thursday "after a period of ill health" in a statement to ABC News.

"It is with much sadness that I share the news that beloved actress Brenda Fricker passed away peacefully last night in Dublin, after a period of ill health, at the age of 81," his statement reads.

Belfield continued, "We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her. I was honoured to know, love and work with her and she will always have a place in my heart and in the heart of so many film and TV fans the world over."

Fricker was born in Dublin, Ireland, on Feb. 17, 1945. Her career as an actress found her appearing in over 30 film and TV roles.

Fricker won a best supporting actress Oscar in 1990 for her role in My Left Foot. She played Daniel Day-Lewis’ mother in the movie.

Audiences would likely recognize her as the Central Park pigeon lady in the 1992 sequel film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

She recently published a memoir titled She Died Young, which appeared on the Irish Sunday Times bestseller list. Fricker was also recently granted the honor of the Freedom of the City of Dublin, "which she was particularly thrilled and proud of," her agent said.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) -- The family of a Westchester grandmother who died after falling into an open manhole in Midtown Manhattan filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the utility responsible for the manhole, alleging its workers failed to properly seal the cover.

Donike Goncaj, 56, fell into the manhole at 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue on May 18 and died of scald burns and thermal inhalation from the steam. The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court on Thursday, says she suffered "severe, horrifying, and catastrophic injuries."

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Goncaj's death an accident.

The utility, Con Edison, concluded a truck ran over the manhole and dislodged the cover and noted in a statement in May that "while this is a rare occurrence, manhole covers can get displaced by heavy vehicles."

The lawsuit, filed by Goncaj's son on behalf of her estate, and her domestic partner, alleged ConEdison "should have known that dislodged and displaced manhole covers presented a recurring and foreseeable danger to pedestrians" and accused the utility of negligence, carelessness and reckless disregard for their mother's safety.

Someone falling to their death in a manhole "ordinarily does not occur in the absence of negligence," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit contended that ConEd and its contractors "had a duty to maintain" the manhole "in reasonably safe conditions," including warning pedestrians and providing a ladder or staircase to exit it.

ConEd did not immediately comment on the suit. In May, it said it was investigating the situation and working with the city in its probe.

"Our thoughts remain with her family, and safety remains our top priority," ConEd said in a statement a day after the incident.

According to the lawsuit, Goncaj's domestic partner, Jashar Kameraj, witnessed her falling into the scalding hot manhole and tried to rescue her, to no avail.

Kameraj and Goncaj's son are seeking unspecified damages.

-ABC News' Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Ready, set, binge! Here's a look at some of the new movies and TV shows coming to theaters and streaming services this weekend:

ABC, Hulu
Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro: This new spinoff finds dancers competing to be the next pro on Dancing with the Stars.

Apple TV
Lucky: Anya Taylor-Joy stars in this new crime-drama series co-created by Reese Witherspoon.

Prime Video
Ride or Die: Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham star as besties on the run in this new action series.

Netflix
Heartstopper Forever: The beloved series is wrapped up in this film that concludes the show's story. 

The Hawk: Will Ferrell stars as a pro golfer set to revitalize his career in the new comedy series. 

Movie theaters
The Odyssey: Christopher Nolan directs this adaptation of Homer's epic poem starring Matt Damon as Odysseus. 

That’s all for this week’s Weekend Watchlist – happy streaming!

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation Richard Fordyce says several USDA agencies will work together to determine eligibility and distribute the funding.

USDA has not yet notified eligible processors because officials are still compiling processing data and calculating payment amounts. Fordyce says the department will judge the program’s success by whether it helps maintain the processing infrastructure that connects farmers and ranchers with consumers.

Although the nation’s cattle inventory remains historically low, Fordyce says now is the time to protect processing capacity. He says rebuilding the beef herd without maintaining enough processors could create new challenges for producers in the years ahead.

The SPUR program is being administered differently from many traditional USDA assistance programs. Instead of local Farm Service Agency offices handling applications, eligibility will be determined using Food Safety Inspection Service records, with the Farm Service Agency administering the program from its headquarters in Washington. Fordyce says USDA is also working through how information about funding recipients will be made available to the public.

Fordyce says maintaining a healthy processing sector is essential to ensuring cattle producers continue to have reliable marketing opportunities as the industry works toward rebuilding the national herd. USDA says the SPUR program is intended to preserve that critical link in the supply chain while strengthening the nation’s long-term beef processing capacity.

(WASHINGTON) -- Private equity billionaire Leon Black walked out of his transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee regarding his decades-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after refusing to answer questions about nondisclosure agreements allegedly related to the disgraced sex offender, according to a transcript of the June 26 interview released by the committee Friday.

While he said he would be willing to talk about three women involved in lawsuits against him, Black repeatedly declined to answer questions about how many nondisclosure agreements he was involved in, citing the advice of his attorneys. 

"I'm not here to talk about confidential NDAs," Black said, later adding. "I'm not here to talk about who has NDAs."

Black was issued two subpoenas after his refusals -- one compelling him to participate in a deposition and another to turn over any NDAs. A House Oversight Committee spokesperson said Black's attorney confirmed Black would appear for a deposition on Sept. 3, and he will turn over the NDAs sometime next week. 

Black, who maintained a social relationship with Epstein since the mid-1990s and eventually paid him more than $170 million for "tax and estate planning advice," according to the Senate Finance Committee, appeared before the Oversight panel as part of its ongoing probe into the government's investigation of the convicted sex offender.

Black acknowledged that he discussed at least one nondisclosure agreement with Epstein, though he denied he sought Epstein's advice on the matter. According to Black, he agreed to pay a woman with whom he had a six-year affair after she allegedly "blackmailed and extorted" him, ultimately agreeing to pay her more than $21 million over 15 years. Because Epstein was helping manage his finances, Black said he made Epstein aware of the agreement and payments. 

"I don't know whether he had any experience on NDAs. He was not my NDA adviser," Black said of Epstein, according to the transcript. 

Black was served the two subpoenas after he declined to answer broader questions about other alleged nondisclosure agreements. His lawyers argued that Black was not at liberty to discuss confidential agreements he was a party to, and called the subpoenas a stunt. 

"Mr. Black came here voluntarily to assist the committee. This was nothing more than a planned political stunt," said Black's attorney Aaron Cutler. "Mr. Epstein had no involvement with any NDAs, whether they exist or not."

Before the interview was cut short, Black faced questions about his decades-long relationship with Epstein, who he first began to see socially before hiring him to manage part of his estate. While Black acknowledged that he saw Epstein somewhat regularly -- about once a month -- he claimed they were not close friends. 

"Friendship is an amorphous term. This is somebody who knew intimately the goings on in my family tax and estate planning entities. It's also something where, as I mentioned, I'd go over and meet his friends. I know there are emails where he claims that we're best friends. We were never best friends," Black said, per the transcript. 

Lawmakers pushed back when Black sought to distance himself from Epstein, including by asking about a message Black wrote for a book that Maxwell, Epstein's longtime associate, created for Epstein's 50th birthday. According to the Wall Street Journal, Black wrote a two-line poem -- "Blonde, Red or Brunette, spread out geographically ... with this net of fish, Jeff's now 'The Old Man and The Sea'" -- which he signed "Love and kisses, Leon."

Asked to explain the note, Black said he was referencing how Epstein "seemed to know women all over the world," though he denied knowing any of the women were underage. 

"He enjoyed the company of good-looking women, and he was a bachelor," Black said, saying how Epstein's surrounding himself with "mostly good-looking women" was "a little bit out of like a James Bond movie." 

The interview was cut short after the topic transitioned to nondisclosure agreements, and Black was not asked about the more than $158 he paid Epstein for "tax and estate planning advice." During his opening remarks, Black claimed that he paid Epstein so much because he solved a "massive estate problem ... that would have destroyed enormous value." He denied that the money was related to any illegal activities. 

"I have never paid Epstein for access to women. I was never blackmailed by Epstein. I was not involved with, and had no knowledge of, any of Epstein's heinous conduct," Black said, according to the transcript. 

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.