Bad Romance: No Tomorrow

Hi, it's Deborah Roberts. For the next eight weeks, we're excited to bring you a special series on the 2020 podcast.
It's called Bad Romance. The series unravels the shocking true crime stories of love turned lethal.
Take a listen.

Am I ever gonna love again? Weddings are all about the future, a lifetime of tomorrows. A woman in suburban Dallas was days away from that future.

But for Laura Grillo, sadly, there will be no wedding, no honeymoon, and no tomorrow.

Happy birthday!

Oh my gosh.

Make a wish!

Thank you. Here, Mom, here! Oh my gosh.
Make a wish! My name's Heather Neighbor. Laura was my best friend.
She was like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. Very giving.
She always wanted to help people. Look at you and your bear.
Her kids were her world. How are you wearing a brother's hat? Look at your boot.
So cute. I remember we finally picked out her dress, and that perfect outfit for the perfect day.
Making the wish, ringing the bell. I kind of talked her into that.
I'm glad I did that. I really feel like she, for years, have been searching for home, and she found that in Rowlett.
Rowlett's a bedroom community, a lot of rooftops, a lot of people leave town during the day to work in the city. Yes, we have a lot of commuters that work in Dallas and then come back home.
It's a quiet neighborhood. What did she like about Rowlett? She loved the community.
And she wanted to lay down roots in this little community? Yeah-hmm, yeah, and she did. Did she feel safe in Rowlett?

I think she felt really safe in Rowlett.

Unfortunately, she wasn't.

I want to say there's an emergency.

I just shut off the knife.

Thank you. We got a radio call of an unconscious female.
She's not moving?

I think somebody might have...

You think somebody might have what, sir?

I knew this was good of a girl. I'm not sure what is happening.
When we respond to any calls, we activate the body camera. When we arrived there, the fire department had made entry into the house.
Looks to be a wound broom to the head, focus, lots of blood, and the shell casing.

God.

And they had backed out of the house

because they located a shell casing.

We got one down, shell casing on the floor.

We made entry into the house.

There are power rings!

And began clearing it.

Clear.

Searching for people and victims.

Got blood in the kitchen.

Blood down this hall.

Stay on me, Gerard.

Yes, sir.

One victim.

We located a victim laying face down in the kitchen

with a lot of blood around her head.

I don't have her information yet.

That purse being right there next to her, I'm wondering if she just got here. She still had her purse and her keys in her head.
I don't have her information yet. That purse being right there next to her,

I'm wondering if she just got here.

She still had her purse and her keys in her hand,

and her shoes were several feet away from her body.

So it gave us the indication that whatever happened

happened pretty quick.

Inside the master bedroom, there was a safe on the dresser.

The door was open, and there was two plastic totes

that were turned over on the bed.

It didn't look as far as burglary that was interrupted

I'm sorry. on the dresser, the door was open and there was two plastic totes that were turned over on the bed.
It didn't look as far as burglary that was interrupted or anything like that. It just didn't look right to me.
Can you confirm CID en route? CID is the criminal investigations division which houses all of our detectives. Can you confirm that CID has been notified en route? I was pretty certain that this was going to be a major case and I wanted to get those guys out there as soon as possible.
We found one shell casing a couple of feet away from her body as well. That was the only piece of evidence that was left there at the scene.
There was no gun, there was no blood that was out of place. There was no fingerprints.
There was no DNA. So we had very little to work with.
We didn't touch the body. It looked like, I thought I saw an entry wound in her forehead.
There was a large police presence and first responder presence at the house. There were several neighbors that started coming out and wanting to know what's going on.
As we were securing the scene, I was approached by a male who called me by my first name. In law enforcement, we call each other by last name.
Okay, come here, come here, come here come here. But he called me by my first name and kind of took me by surprise and that's when I recognized John Macrus as the person that was calling me.
Right now we all I know is there's somebody down inside the house it looks like a gunshot wound. John Macrus was a volunteer with the police department in a program called VIPS and I'd known him over maybe a two-year period.
That is all I can tell you and that's all I know right now. Once I realized it was John's house that made me start thinking that it was Laura that was was down inside the house.
Laura is John Macris's fiancee. Laura was part of the VIP program.
What does that stand for? Volunteer in police services. And she even tried out the emergency fire department ambulance program.
You know Laura, right? Yeah. I did know Laura from volunteering police fire.
Can you go and verify that, sir?

I can't right now.

Police are left to wonder, why would anyone want to kill a 37-year-old mother of three

eight days before her wedding?

Was she a robbery victim or could she have been

a target? We didn't have any idea what we were getting into on day one when we responded to this call. One victim.
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There used to be a boom to the head. No kiss, not to the blood.
There's a shell face. God.
Go left. Make them down.
Mystery surrounds the shooting death of Laura Grillo at her home outside Dallas, Texas. And that purse being right there next to her, I'm wondering if she just got here.
Alright, let's back out. At the very beginning stages of an investigation like this, obviously we have to talk to everybody that lives in the house.
And then John Macris, who just walked up. And we have to confirm their timeline of everything they were doing that day to rule them out as a possible suspect.
I keep calling, calling, calling the answer. I call.
And that includes Laura's fiance, John Macris, who runs his own construction company and is originally from Greece. I'll let you know everything when I find out.
So at the time this happened, Laura lived in the house with her soon-to-be husband, John, and their three children, and Laura's adult brother, Brian. John's mom was also in town.
Who all lives here? Me, Brian, her three kids. Okay.
And now my mom is visiting. Okay.
We determined that there was no forced entry into the house. So that kind of tightens our circle down a little bit.
We felt this was somebody that was pretty close to Laura and was able to either get in the home or somebody that she let in. John Macrus and his mother, who was here from Greece for the wedding, are together that morning but away from this house.
Laura's brother Brian, the one who called 911, says he was asleep and did not hear a gunshot. So that throws up a red flag of, is he the suspect? Did he do this? We had to look at Brian, but what we found is that he's deaf in one ear and hearing impaired in the other.

And if he's laying on his good ear, then that was the reason why he didn't hear the gunshot.

Pretty early on, we eliminated Brian as a suspect.

So Rowlett, Texas police detectives decide to take a closer look at Laura's relationship

with her fiance, John Macris.

Liz Frog is Laura's younger sister.

Laura was living in Georgia

and she used to play a multiplayer online game.

So you could talk with anyone and meet other people.

And that is Hashimajan.

And he was living in Texas. They began a romantic relationship online.
Was Laura a romantic? Yeah, she was. In the beginning stages, I think it was more like an infatuation.
They hadn't met in person yet. It was like the excitement of something new.
Like she was happy about it. Laura has been married before and has two children.
So she decides to take things slowly with John Macris. She was, you know, really adventurous.
She was also really smart. She had her kids to think about.
And just moving in with some guy that she really didn't know was not an option.

She moved to Texas. She did.

She did not move in with him.

Yeah, she didn't move in with him right away.

Lara had a job lined up.

She was getting her own place so they could start a relationship and see how it would go.

Lara found out that she was pregnant within the first four months of being there. How did she feel about the pregnancy? A little surprised, but you know, happy about it.
He wasn't. And he denied that the child was his.
He said that she was sleeping with somebody else.

He made her get a paternity test and go to his lawyer's office for the results.

She was really hurt.

And he still wasn't really willing to have anything to do with her.

Until he knew 100% sure that Maria was his.

But when the baby's born, all that is forgotten. John Macris dotes on baby Maria.
This suburban home in Rowlett holds the entire family, Laura's kids, the toddler, and Laura's mom and brother. Laura juggles raising the growing family and helping at the kids' as well as volunteering at the local fire and police departments.
At Rowlett we have a program called VIPS and it's Volunteers in Police Service and they were a modified volunteer uniform and these are citizens of Rowlett. They help us a lot.
Both John and Laura completed our Citizens Police Academy in the fall of 2014 and had become VIPs members for our police department. When detectives asked John Macrus to come in for an interview here at the Rowlett Police Department, it was a building he'd been to many times before as a police volunteer.
In the interview room, Detective Cruz Hernandez breaks the news to John Macris that the victim has been identified. I just got a phone with the police officers and detectives at the scene.
They've had a chance to go in. And I told John that I had confirmation that the deceased person was his fiancée, Laura.

What did they tell me that it is going to be Laura?

I'm sorry for your loss. Detectives remember what John said at the scene when they asked him who lived in the

house. He stated that it was him, the kids, his mother, and the victim's brother, but he never did say the victim's name.
He never mentions Laura. That was a huge red flag because maybe he knew a lot more what was going on.
Detectives asked John Macrus what he and Laura did the morning of her murder. He told us that morning Laura left with the kids to take them to school.
He left at that same time with his mom, and he drove to meet his two construction workers, Jesus and James, at a Home Depot in Dallas. Our very next step was to get in touch with those stores and pull the video surveillance to make sure that what he was telling us was actually true.
And there he is at the Home Depot. It cleared John at that point of the investigation.
We knew that John had not committed the murder.

So who had killed Laura Grillo? Police asked John if Laura had any enemies.

She had any problems with anybody lately?

Anybody that would want to hurt her right now?

He could not think of anyone that would want to hurt Laura.

Nobody was mad at him. Nobody was you know after him for anything.
Filled with questions and short on leads, Rowlett detectives keep digging and they find out something that they didn't expect. This case had lots of twists and turns.
We had no idea at the very beginning of this what we were getting into and how much planning actually did go into this. They very well may have gotten away with the perfect murder.
Detectives have been chipping away at the mystery surrounding the mother of three's death a week before her scheduled wedding.

The morning of Laura Grillo's murder,

her fiance, John Macris, was meeting two of his employees,

Jesus Trevino and James Vieda at a Home Depot in Dallas.

When John told us that he had met Jesus and James

at the Home Depot, we brought them in just to confirm that John's story was correct. We'll take him to Friday, Friday the 13th.
Jesus Trevino is not only John's employee, he's also going to be the best man in John and Laura's wedding. We were going to meet up at Home Depot.
I went to James' house down the street from me. So you picked up James? Picked up James.
What kind of vehicle are y'all in? In the Lincoln, a black Lincoln. You can see on the Home Depot video that they're driving a black Lincoln.
It was like a time when they were considered witnesses. We had no reason to believe that they were involved in Laura's death.
Do you know anything about that would help us in our investigation? I'll just stay around and work for them for three weeks. After the interviews, we did do some background investigating into James and Jesus and found out that they're both sex offenders.
It's relevant to authorities because these two alibi witnesses for John Macris both have criminal pasts. We took off like at 8.30.
Jesus told us initially that he was in Dallas all morning with his co-worker James and that they went from James' motel straight to Home Depot to meet up with John.

His phone record said otherwise.

At the time that John and Laura were leaving the house that morning,

Jesus' phone was traveling from Dallas east into Rowlett.

Not toward the Home Depot, but to the suburban neighborhood where John and Laura lived. At that point, we knew that Jesus had a lot more information than what he was initially providing.
We obtained a search warrant to seize Jesus' cell phone. Shortly after that, he fled the state.
Once Jesus fled and we could not locate him, we needed the public's help. Police announced a person of interest, 30-year-old Jesus Emmanuel Trevino.
We needed Jesus' face out there and let him know that he was a person of interest of killing Laura. If someone could provide us with information, that will help us in locating him.
We really had no idea at that point he could have been anywhere. With the nationwide manhut for Jesus Trevino underway, John Macrus is also on local television, and he's saying he's looking for answers.
Why somebody will do something like that to her? I mean, I'm not talking about Jesus. I'm talking about, in general, why? And I mean, now a name comes up, it's somebody that I know.
It's like the why now is even bigger. Why is the question the police have as well.
So detectives turn to John Macris for answers.

How have things been lately, relationship-wise,

between you and her?

She was happy, I was happy even.

Of course the couple have our arguments.

Normal stuff?

Normal stuff, not really too many arguments.

But detectives wonder, did this couple have hidden secrets? We were able to find one email that Laura sent to John that she wanted out of the relationship. In June of 2015, Laura had sent the email saying, I'm at my wit's end.
I'm going to leave.

She wanted to separate and she was trying to assure him that she's not out after child support and

money and that he could still see the kids and that it's not a

vengeance thing. It's just not working.
And after that, out of the blue, John proposes to her. Right.
Exactly. John counters Laura's breakup email by asking her to marry him.
And she says yes. It was a little surprising when she agreed to marry him.
I was like, okay, well, that kind of flip-flopped,

but, you know, okay.

She wanted to have a stable life for our kids.

She felt like maybe it would bring her and John

closer together.

He proposes, and four months later, the wedding is set.

You were her maid of honor. Mm-hmm, yeah Yeah we had a lot of fun picking out the dress.
We tried several on it. It's always a long process.
You know picking out the cakes and the wedding flowers. They're planning on getting married in November.
It's just eight days before their November wedding when Laura is killed. That morning, her best friend Heather is shopping for Laura's bridal shower.
So I was picking out cards and gifts when I got the call to go to the house. In an instant, Laura's friends and family go from planning for her wedding to planning her funeral.
I was waiting to wake up from a nightmare. I'm like, none of this can be real.
What was John's behavior like after she was killed? It was like maybe just a little hiccup happened in his life. You know? He was just, he was way too heavy.
He was smiling, he was like making jokes. The very day following Laura's murder, John moves the children back into the house.
Rollet police released the house on Saturday and John moved the family right back in the house. You got to remember, Laura's been killed in the kitchen and And the suspect is still at large.

And so we found that odd that he never asked for any type of security detail. He didn't seem concerned at all about whoever this random person might have been at the time coming back to his home.
It's another red flag. But John does ask for help from the neighbors to clean up Laura's blood from the kitchen floor.
One of the neighbors was there helping clean and he said, hey, go get her toothbrush. And so they were using her toothbrush to scrub blood out of the grout.
Grout. He made someone clean up her blood in the grout of a towel.

Mm-hmm. He was also complaining how, like, that the funeral costs were so expensive and even after Laura's dead she

was still costing him money. Laura's maid of honor says John wants to try to get refunds for the wedding cake and even the flowers.
The bridal bouquet you know there was no refunding that So he decided to use it for the funeral. The wedding flowers be turned into funeral arrangements.
The pain and the grief didn't hit until I was at her memorial service. I was in seeing her picture and then this little box in front of it.
That's when it really hit. Like, that's my sister.
I was never going to hear her voice again. I was never going to be able to hug her again.
Detectives decide that John's employee, James Villeda, the one who'd only known him for three weeks, is the one most likely to cut a deal. And they bring a Texas Ranger into the interrogation room.
What's that? What's that? Jim Holland is a legend here in Texas. He got dragged into something that he didn't know about.
I know that.

He is an expert at solving

cold cases.

You're not a killer.

And one interview

makes all the difference.

Hello, it's Robin Roberts here.

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Wake up with Good Morning America.

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Five months into the investigation, police are still searching for Jesus Trevino,

that employee who met up with John Macris on the morning of the murder.

If someone could provide us with information to get him located and return to Texas. Finally, a tip leads authorities more than a thousand miles away.
Jesus was ultimately located in the Clearwater, Florida area and taken into custody by U.S. Marshals.
Jesus Trevino is in custody, but he's not talking. So investigators turn again to John Macris' other employee, James Vieda.
Hey James, Jim Hollins with the Rangers, how you doing? This time police bring in an investigator with the Texas Rangers. How's life treating you today? Vieda, it seems, is starstruck.
You actually remind me of the legend of the Texas Rangers I heard about, but the old Wild West days. Yeah, yeah.
They'll send all these marshals and sheriffs in there and it took one Texas Ranger. One white, one Ranger, right? Okay.
James was infatuated with Texas Rangers, and that actually worked out to our advantage. Have you ever trusted anyone in your life? Today's the name.
Because there's no one else that can help you in this deal. You just want to go home, okay? There's an opportunity for that.
You steer the boat, man. If you don't play, you can get a night at the Capitol Burger.
James Vieira decides to play and over the course of a four-hour interview he paints a disturbing picture of a plot of crime and a cover-up. His story starts with a call from an old friend, Jesus Trevino, that other man from the morning Laura was killed.
There was just one of the conversation. It was later on that the job came up.
John. Vieda says the conversation quickly turned from working a construction job to becoming an accomplice in a murder.
So first he tells you, hey, you want to help me with the job? I'm going to shoot this lady. And I'll give you a thousand dollars for it.
And what else does he say? That's what he tells me. It's about John's wife.
He's sending it out. The other says he was paid $1,000 just to drive Jesus to Laura's home.
Jesus had approached multiple people. He said, I'll pay you money if you drive me to kill my boss's wife.
And the first and second person turned him down. So I believe that James was brought in at the last minute to drive Jesus to Laura's house to kill her.
James Vieva tells police Laura Grillo's death was no robbery gone wrong. He says it was a murder for hire, orchestrated by the man Laura was just days away from marrying, John Macris.
He's not happy. He doesn't want to marry her.
But he knows it'll be easier. She'll take the kids.
And he wants to keep the kids. So he's going to kill her to keep the kids, basically.
Yeah. He mentioned that he and Jesus had driven out to Rowlett several times attempting to kill Laura, but there was always something that scared Jesus, like somebody walking down the street, or it was raining, something that made them feel uncomfortable, and they would go back to Dallas.
James indicated that John was getting upset with Jesus because it's getting close to the wedding, and I need Laura to be killed before the wedding. Get it done.
This is hard to get this done. Because I have got a suit.
I'm not ready. I'm not doing anything for the wedding.
I need a quick b****. Investigators find text messages.
John Macris sent Jesus Trevino on the morning Laura was killed, saying, don't be late. It's a good day to get some work done.
That information in conjunction with Jesus' cell phone records that show his phone was traveling towards Rowlett, we felt like that was the code for today's the day, you know, come get this done. Tell me where you dropped him off.
Right in front of us. I'm supposed to park on the other block and work until he comes out.
Once Laura walked in, she went to the right, which goes towards the kitchen area, and that's when Jesus jumped out. When he gets back in the car, what does he say to you? That's all.
James told us when they were leaving north out of Rowlett that Jesus was throwing his shoes out, he was throwing his hoodie out along the roads. We were able to find one shoe and one hoodie that was still out there, flattened out in the grass.
After we started heading to the home depot, that's when he starts talking. I secured her.
She actually tried to run.

And that's when I said, yeah, he shot her. He just shot her? Right in the head? The other's confession may be a breakthrough, but police still have a problem.
Cameras never captured Jesus Trevino and his black sedan anywhere near the crime scene. But James Vieda has an answer for that, too.
When you drove over there, you drove? Yes. Okay, and what car were you driving? Some great car.
I don't know how to have to hear that. Jesus had gone out and purchased a car for the sole reason for committing the murder.
They brought the new car out, committed the murder, parked the car, got in their black sedan, and drove to the Home Depot. You can see on the Home Depot video that they're driving a black Lincoln.
Vieda says he doesn't know what kind of car the new one is, but he does know where to find it. Investigators recover this silver Kia sedan in a local Dallas garage and when police go back to the surveillance video in Rowlett, sure enough.
We were able to find that silver Kia sedan leaving Laura's neighborhood at the morning that she was killed. James is finally deciding to cooperate and gave us the information that we needed to move forward with arresting John.
I'm gonna go arrest him. Police arrested the fiance of a mother of three found murdered inside her home in November.
John Macris is in custody, and investigators are about to reveal just how far back they believe the plot to kill Laura Grillo goes. When Laura had sent the email saying, I'm going to leave, and we think that email signed Laura's death warrant.
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Bond is set at $3 million for a man accused of paying two employees to kill his bride-to-be. John Macris and Jesus Trevino were charged with capital murder.
They pled not guilty. It was like there's's gonna be some kind of justice.
We might never get closure, but there will be justice had for Laura. Yes! Finally.
Hey, come on in. Have a seat.
And now it's John Macris, Laura Grillo's fiancee, who's in the interrogation room with that Texas Ranger.

He denies having anything to do with Laura's murder. Sometimes I was getting angry or mad

with her and stuff like that but no I mean I didn't know what you killed. If you arranged for

him to kill her and then you changed your mind and said don't do it but he still wanted the money so

he did it then that's something that needs to come out john because that's not what they're giving me i didn't investigators don't believe him i loved him i still love him they say john macrus is just playing the part of an innocent man john did a very good job of making sure that he was captured on video as many places as he could be. That's when investigators become aware of evidence that they claim suggests Macris had been planning the murder for months.
In December 2014, an ex-girlfriend of Jesus had made a report to the Rockwild Police Department. That was the first time that it was known that Jesus was talking about committing this crime.
According to the police report, a friend of Trevino's offered him $15,000 to kill his wife or $5,000 to find someone who would. But according to the police, he didn't say who that friend was.
This nearly a year before Laura Grillo was murdered. He didn't give her any names at that point, so she had no idea who the intended victim was going to be.
The case was referred to the Texas Rangers. They declined ABC News' request for an interview.
He had been planning this since December of 2014. So in June of 2015, when Laura had sent the email saying, I'm going to leave and I can't promise I'll stay in Texas, John, about 20 minutes later, he forwards it to Jesus.
Unfortunately, we think that email signed Laura's death warrant. And soon after that, John Macris proposes, but investigators don't believe he ever intended to go through with any wedding.
He knew that time was running out and that he had to act quickly to keep her here. The motive here was he wanted to control Laura.
He wanted sole custody of the four-year-old daughter. And because he couldn't control Laura, he decided to just eliminate her.
When John is arrested, little Maria is taken in by Laura's friend, Heather. And in September of 2018, John Macris goes on trial in Dallas County.
John's defense was that he had no involvement and Jesus and James just went rogue and did this on their own. It didn't make sense.
His defense doesn't make sense to the jury either. John Macris is convicted of capital murder.
And so is Jesus Trevino, the man who actually pulled the trigger. They are sentenced to life without parole.
But what about the driver, James Vieda? He too was charged with capital murder, but made a deal with prosecutors. Since James did cooperate with us and testify in both John and Jesus' trial, we did give him a lesser charge of murder, and he was sentenced to 25 years in the Texas Department of Corrections.
I wrote a victim's impact statement on behalf of my sister because my sister no longer has a voice so I'm speaking for her. And the people that did this to her, that took her life, needed to be put away and kept away forever.
John Macros is now behind bars for life,

but his next step is hard to believe.

He's ready to go back to court,

this time to keep Laura's best friend, Heather,

from adopting his young daughter,

the daughter she had been raising.

What happened when you get that notification

that John wants his daughter?

I'm like, well, I'm fighting. I'm not giving up.
That's my kid. That day that Laura was killed, the family, they stepped on the landmine.
Laura Grilla was not the only victim in this brutal crime. So are her three children, including four-year-old Maria, whom Laura shared with John Macris.
All of them have lost their mother and their home. After Laura was murdered and John was arrested, then the two older children were returned to their biological fathers.
They lost the only siblings they knew. Mm-hmm.
It was pretty horrifying. When John Macris was arrested, Heather, Laura's best friend and neighbor, took Maria in.
I love Heather. She has such a caring heart, and she loved those kids.
Laura did even say, like if something happens to me, please take my kids to her. But Macris, convicted for capital murder, wants his daughter to be raised by his mother.
He wanted Maria to go to Greece with his mom. knowing what I know about John and how he liked to be in control of everything, I wasn't surprised.
I was just wishing that the four-year-old could stay here in Texas because I felt that's what she knew. In 2019, the case went to trial and the jury awarded custody to Heather.
She's mine. I adopted her.
Why was that so important? I wasn't going to give up. Move your feet.
That's my kid. Hi, my wife.
Good job. This case had lots of twists and turns.
Make some brown. And, you know, I would characterize this case as a once-in-a-career case.
We didn't have any idea what we were getting into on day one when we responded to this call. You know a letter, right? Yeah.
You had a really sweet woman that did not deserve to be taken from her children. The only person who had the means and the motive to take Laura away from her family was John.
The jury saw John for the man that he was. It was a feeling I'll never forget.
ABC News contacted John Macris at the Texas prison where he's serving his life sentence. He declined our request for an interview.
He thought he could get away with something, and John, well, you know what? You stole something from a lot of people. And as far as I'm concerned, John Mack just can rot in hell.
Very pretty snow angel. I should still be hearing her voice.
She got you. She was the coolest friend I ever had.
My sister was an amazing person. Anything that she decided that she was going to do, she didn't.
How often do you think of Laura? Every day. I can't help it.
I mean, I got a little mini Laura in my house.

You know, she reminds me so much of her mom.

Maria and her siblings are growing up now

without their mother.

What do you want them to remember about Laura?

She loved them more than anything in the world.

She would want them to be happy. Breaking news, exclusive interviews, what everyone will be talking about that day.
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