Carat USA has promoted Michael Epstein to president, reporting to U.S. chief executive Doug Ray. Epstein had been chief client officer.

Campbell Ewald has promoted Jo Shoesmith to chief creative officer, taking over for the retiring Mark Simon. The agency has also promoted president Kevin Wertz, naming him chief executive officer.

Illinois agency Rhea + Kaiser has made a slew of hires, naming Dustin Gerdes manager of analytics and customer engagement, Patrick Barkley head of video production, Pam Caraway account supervisor for public relations, Steve Knapp copywriter, Emily Johnson account manager for public relations, and Chris Oakland and Alex Greer assistant account managers. All of the moves are effective immediately.

California agency Midnight Oil has named Eric Abromson executive creative director, reporting to president Brandon Gabriel. Abromson was previously a freelance creative director and copywriter.

Josh Mandel has been hired to lead ADHD, a new creative agency within digital media company All Def Digital, which targets urban Millennials. Mandel was previously managing director at R/GA.

CBS News has named Reena Ninan a correspondent based in New York, beginning in May. Ninan was previously a co-anchor on ABC’s “World News Now” and “America This Morning.”

ABC Studios has signed “Code Black” creator Michael Seitzman to a new two-year deal, under which he will develop new projects. Seitzman also previously created and produced “Intelligence.”

Actress Cloris Leachman has joined the cast of Starz’ upcoming “American Gods,” based on the Neil Gaiman novel. The series has also added Peter Stormare, Chris Obi and Mousa Kraish.

Actress Carrie Anne-Moss has joined the cast of AMC’s “Humans” for its second season, which will premiere in the U.S. sometime next year. Others joining for season two include Sam Palladio, Marshall Allman, Sonya Cassidy and Letitia Wright.

Curt Schilling, the former pitcher and baseball analyst on ESPN, was fired by the network on Wednesday after he shared what the network deemed an offensive Facebook post about the transgender restroom controversy in North Carolina. Schilling is no stranger to social media controversy, previously posting a comment on Twitter that compared radical Muslims to Nazis. ESPN suspended him for that last fall.

Prince Rogers Nelson, the musician and sometimes-actor better known simply as Prince, died at age 57 on Thursday in his home outside of Minneapolis. The cause was unknown as of Thursday afternoon. Prince made his mark in music, winning seven Grammy Awards from 30 career nominations. He had five No. 1 singles in his career and another 14 that hit the top 10, and he won an Academy Award for best original song score for the movie “Purple Rain.” He also appeared in a handful of movies during his career, including “Purple Rain,” “Under the Cherry Moon” and “Graffiti Bridge.” News of his death came as a surprise and became the top trending topic worldwide on Twitter.

Tags: deaths, people