(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Friday’s sports events:
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Final Philadelphia 100 Oklahoma City 87
Final Charlotte 141 Detroit 119
Final Cleveland 120 Indiana 113
Final San Antonio 136 Atlanta 121
Final Boston 108 Denver 102
Final Chicago 134 Minnesota 122
Final Utah 114 Orlando 99
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Final OT Dallas 4 Winnipeg 3
Final Edmonton 3 N-Y Islanders 1
Final Tampa Bay 4 Arizona 3
Final Seattle 4 Anaheim 3
TOP-25 COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Final (25)Xavier 74 (24)UConn 68
(NEW YORK) — In the five years since Utah passed the strictest legislation in the country on blood alcohol driving limits, there have been fewer traffic deaths overall in the state and lower driver alcohol involvement, a federal study found.
A law that lowered the state’s legal blood alcohol concentration limit to .05 from .08, the national standard, went into effect in 2018.
In a new study published Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration compared data between 2016 — the last full year before the law was passed — and 2019 — the first year under the lower legal limit. It found that Utah had fewer traffic fatalities and fewer fatal crashes in 2019 despite drivers logging more miles.
There were 248 fatalities and 225 fatal crashes in 2019, compared to 281 fatalities and 259 fatal crashes in 2016, according to the report.
The fatality rate fell by 18.3% and the fatal crash rate decreased by 19.8% during that time, researchers found. In comparison, the rest of the United States saw a 5.9% and 5.6% decrease, respectively, during that time.
In the months following the laws’ passage and enactment, researchers also found a reduction in the rate of crashes involving alcohol at multiple BAC levels.
Additionally, the study noted survey data that found 22% of drinkers said they had changed their behaviors once the law went into effect, most commonly “ensuring transportation was available when drinking away from home.”
The passage of the law “had demonstrably positive impacts on highway safety in Utah,” the report stated. “The crash analyses highlighted reliable reductions in crash rates and alcohol involvement in crashes associated with the new law that were consistent with, or greater than, those observed or predicted by prior research.”
Utah is the first and only state to adopt the .05% BAC limit, based on recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board.
At the time, there were concerns about the law’s potential impact on the state’s economy. However, the law does not appear to have impacted tourism, researchers said, noting that alcohol sales and consumption “appeared to continue their increasing trends under the new law as did tourism and tax revenues.”
Arrests for driving under the influence also did not rise sharply after the law went into effect, researchers noted.
“Utah typically has one of the lowest rates of impaired driving fatalities in the nation, but this study shows that all states have room for improvement,” NTSB Deputy Administrator Steven Cliff said in a statement. “As our study shows, changing the law to .05% in Utah saved lives and motivated more drivers to take steps to avoid driving impaired.”
Cliff said he hopes the study will be a “useful tool” for other states considering adopting a lower BAC limit. Lawmakers in several states, including New York, California and Hawaii, have explored it, but all states except for Utah still use .08% as the legal limit. Forty-four states have increased penalties for drivers convicted at higher BACs, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.
Every day, 29 people in the U.S. die in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(NEW YORK) — The deaths of two young aspiring rappers last week have reinvigorated the debate about drill music, a popular subgenre of rap, and its connection to violence.
Jayquan McKenley, an 18-year-old aspiring rapper from the Bronx known as CHII WVTTZ, was shot and killed Sunday morning while leaving a recording studio in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
McKenley was shot in the chest, police said, and was transferred to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
His death came days after 22-year-old Tahjay Dobson, who is known as rapper Tdott Woo, was shot and killed Tuesday in front of his home in the neighborhood of Canarsie hours after signing a record deal.
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An NYPD spokesman told ABC News on Thursday that no arrests have been made in either case and the investigations are ongoing. Major crime in New York City is up 38.5% from January 2021 to January 2022, according to NYPD statistics.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who shared McKenley’s story during a press conference Thursday, addressed the problem of gun violence in the drill community and the proliferation of guns in the city while speaking to reporters Friday.
Adams said he is set to meet with “some very top known rappers” to form a coalition of hip-hop artists dedicated to tackling the problem.
“We’re going to sit down and really bring in the rappers and show how this is impacting and is causing loss of lives of young people like them,” Adams said, adding that he will share the names of the artists and details about the meeting soon.
What is drill music?
McKenley and Dobson were both part of the Brooklyn drill music scene – a hip-hop subgenre that started in Chicago and was popularized by Chicago rappers like Chief Keef, Lil Durk,·Fredo Santana, King Louie, G Herbo, Lil Bibby and Lil Reese.
Jabari Evans, a professor of race and media who studies subgenres of urban youth, at the University of South Carolina, told ABC News that the “well-defined sound” of drill music is what makes it unique, and the genre is sonically known for “chanty choruses, dark scents and kind of warring 808 [drum beats].”
But the violence described in the lyrics and the genre’s origins in Chicago gang culture are what make it controversial.
Erik Nielson, co-author of the 2019 book “Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America,” told ABC News that drill music’s “primary connection to violence is artistic and creative” and for drill artists, the music is “a way out of the the violent neighborhoods that they chronicle.”
According to Evans, drill rap emerged in the Southside of Chicago in the early 2010s as Chicago’s version of “gangster music” and was centered around “well-defined gang politics.”
“The meaning on the streets of Chicago was, if you were doing a ‘drill,’ that meant you were doing a crime,” he said.
But drill music “evolved” over the years, as it blew up around the world, Evans added, becoming popular in cities from NYC, to Los Angeles and countries like the United Kingdom and Uganda.
And despite the diversity of the lyrics and the artists, Evans said the genre still carries the same violent connotation in the media and for law enforcement.
‘His music was anything but hopeful’
Over the years, drill artists have been monitored and targeted by law enforcement, with some being banned from performing in their own hometowns. But artists have long argued that their music is a form of self-expression that chronicles the struggles of life on the streets.
Such was the case of McKenley, Mayor Adams said on Thursday, as he discussed problems in the city’s social services, criminal justice and school systems that leave young people vulnerable.
“There are thousands of Jayquans in our city right now,” Adams said. “Thousands of children experiencing homelessness and poverty, who need educational support, who are at high risk … we cannot let thousands of children lose their lives to violence and neglect.”
Adams said that once he learned about McKenley’s life, “a clear profile emerged of someone who needed help” because he struggled in school and at home. He was also arrested multiple times between 2018-2021, most recently for attempted murder.
Like other drill music artists, McKenley and Dobson built a following and released their music on social media.
McKenley’s Instagram account has more than 27,000 followers and Dobson has more than 94,000 followers.
“Like many young men, Jayquan was an aspiring rapper. ‘Aspiring’ is a word that means hope, but his music was anything but hopeful,” Adams said.
Asked if McKenley and Dobson’s killings could be related to gang violence, the police did not comment.
‘We can’t stereotype an entire group’
The Brooklyn drill music scene was brought into the mainstream by artists like Fivio Foreign and the late rapper Pop Smoke, who was one of the biggest stars to popularize Brooklyn drill before he was shot and killed on Feb. 19, 2020.
Hot 97’s DJ Drewski, whose legal name is Andrew Loffa, was an early supporter of Pop Smoke and the Brooklyn drill music scene. He said on Tuesday in a message posted to his Instagram Stories that while he will continue to play drill music, he will no longer play “diss/gang” music that is aimed at rival rappers.
“If ya dissing each other in the songs, don’t even send it to me!” he wrote. “We r losing too many young men and women to the streets!”
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez told Fox5NY earlier this week that there have been “a number of shootings in Brooklyn recently that are directly related to drill.”
“These drill rap videos are causing young people to lose their lives. It’s not that the music is the cause of the violence, but it’s fueling the desire to retaliate,” he said.
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Fivio Foreign, who was friends with TDott Woo, defended the genre in an interview with TMZ Tuesday, saying, “It’s not the music that’s killing people, it’s the music that’s helping n—– from the hood get out the hood.”
But Perry Williams, McKenley’s father, criticized the impact of drill music scene in an interview with Fox5NY, saying his son faced intense competition as an aspiring rapper.
“Our hip-hop is no long hip-hop anymore, and now, if you’re not doing drill, you’re not going to get no play,” Williams said.
Evans said that while “drill has produced real violence,” artists have a right to self-expression and each artist has unique motivations.
“We can’t stereotype an entire group based on the genre of music that they’ve chosen to participate in,” he said.
There’s a longstanding tradition of artists feuding through their music in hip-hop and it’s possible that it “spills over into the streets or in real life,” Nielson said.
But he added that drill music has become “a convenient boogeyman” for law enforcement – “a lazy, misinformed narrative” that ignores the “systemic causes of violence in these neighborhoods.”
Evans echoed Nielson, saying that “it’s easy to make drill a scapegoat,” but “in reality, the situations, the spaces, places, and problems that existed in certain communities existed far before drill.”
In sharing McKenley’s story, Adams addressed those systemic problems, including homelessness and poverty that left the teenager vulnerable.
“To Jayquan’s mother and father, I want you to say I’m sorry,” a tearful Adams said.
He added, “I’m sorry that your son was passed over for so long and taken from you too soon. I’m sorry we betrayed him, and so many others like him.”
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
(DETROIT) — When Bruce Miller was found fatally shot at his Michigan salvage yard in November 1999, it was Jerry Cassaday who pulled the trigger.
But the one pulling the strings on Cassaday was his online girlfriend and the self-professed woman of his dreams, the woman who had convinced him to travel 800 miles to kill a man he thought was an abusive husband: Sharee Miller.
A few months later, Cassaday would die by suicide, an event that would unravel the web of lies Miller created online. Miller said her relationships with men on the internet were like a “game” to her.
“It was like a video game and each man and each relationship was another level to me and each level was harder,” Miller told “20/20” in November 2021. “It was seeing how much I could get away with, how much I could make somebody believe.”
Sharee Miller was convicted of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection to her husband’s death in 2000. In her first television interview from prison, Miller told ABC’s Juju Chang that she’s ready to explain why she did it.
“If I could just say it was so I could get money it wouldn’t sound as bad as it really was,” said Miller. “Bruce was so close to knowing who I really was, what was really inside of me.”
Miller, who was then a mother of three in her 20s, met Bruce Miller while working at his scrapyard in Flint, Michigan. Four months later, on April 23, 1999, they eloped to a Las Vegas wedding chapel.
During her marriage to Bruce Miller, Sharee Miller said she regularly talked to men on AOL chat rooms.
“I didn’t get up from in front of that computer,” Sharee Miller said. “Bruce worked at the shop and he had his business. So he was gone a lot.”
In these chat rooms, she met Cassaday, a former homicide detective, who then worked at a casino in Reno, Nevada.
“I spent hours upon hours online. It’s sex. I wanted to be in control of everything, obsessively in control of that man,” said Miller.
At the time, Cassaday was in the midst of a divorce and was having deep financial problems, according to Detective Kevin Shanlian, who investigated the case at the time.
Miller and Cassaday’s online relationship soon turned physical and she traveled multiple times to meet him. Cassaday began to fall for Sharee Miller and he reportedly told his mother that she was the “woman of [his] dreams.”
However, Miller began to fabricate stories, and told Cassaday that her husband was involved in the mafia and was abusive. She also claimed that she was pregnant with Cassaday’s child and sent him pictures, including positive pregnancy tests and photos of her stomach.
“I just pushed my belly out. Jerry wanted to believe so bad that I believed that he’d see the pregnancy even though it wasn’t there,” said Miller. Later, she would tell Cassaday that her husband, Bruce Miller, had found out about her pregnancy and beat her, causing her to lose the baby.
“I think I wrote him in a chat. I didn’t tell him on the phone. He was devastated,” said Miller, who said she used makeup to send Cassaday a photo of her “bruised” stomach.
Not even a few months later, Miller told Cassaday that she was pregnant again, but this time with twins. Soon after the news, Cassaday received an email, purportedly from Bruce Miller, saying that he forced his wife to abort the twins.
That drove Cassaday to a breaking point.
“His babies, not only one but then two twins, had been killed by Bruce Miller. And that just enraged him — as it would any man,” said Shanlian.
Sharee Miller and Cassaday hatched a plan to kill her husband, she said. Cassaday would travel to Michigan and shoot Bruce Miller while he was at work at the salvage yard he owned.
“It was almost like a movie, that we were just playing a game,” said Miller. “But after I met [Jerry] at the truck stop … I knew this was going to happen.”
At that rest area, Sharee Miller handed Cassaday her cellphone and gave him final instructions for the murder.
On Nov. 8, 1999, Bruce Miller was shot in the neck and upper back in the office of his scrapyard.
“Afterwards … he called my landline and let it ring once and hung up. … That was his signal to tell me he was on his way back to Kansas City,” Sharee Miller said.
At the time, police believed John Hutchinson, who had worked for Bruce Miller and had recently borrowed $2,000, to be the main suspect in the case.
“I remember, like, me saying that John owed Bruce money, which he did, and that they had been arguing about it,” Sharee Miller said.
Police interrogated Hutchinson and also confronted him with their suspicion that he might be involved in a scheme to overcharge customers at Bruce Miller’s lot. Authorities suspected that this was a substantial enough motive for murder.
Hutchinson adamantly denied killing Bruce Miller and being involved in a scheme.
After the murder, Sharee Miller began to give Cassaday the cold shoulder and started to date other men. Cassaday began to question their relationship and Sharee Miller’s intentions.
Eight hundred miles away, in Odessa, Missouri, Cassaday died by suicide on Feb. 11, 2000.
Under his bed, family members discovered a black briefcase that contained a letter that explained that he had finally realized that Sharee Miller had been lying to him about Bruce Miller’s alleged behavior.
The briefcase also contained records of airline flights, hotel rooms, emails and chat messages between Cassaday and Sharee Miller that seemed to implicate her in the murder of Bruce Miller. The evidence was then turned over to the Genesee County Sheriff’s Department. There was enough evidence to implicate Sharee Miller and she was arrested.
“I felt like I could talk my way out of anything,” Sharee Miller said. “I still in my head felt like there’s no way they’re not going to believe me.”
Miller claimed that the emails found in Cassaday’s briefcase were forged, but the circumstantial evidence mounted against her. She was charged with second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Miller went on trial In 2000. Her defense used an expert witness to testify that it was possible to fake an email, but later the testimony crumbled under cross-examination because the expert could not explain how exactly Cassaday forged Sharee Miller’s emails.
“She used manipulation to get everything from a free lunch to someone to commit murder for her,” said Shanlian.
The jury deliberated for two days and delivered a guilty verdict on all charges. Miller was sentenced to life in prison. Miller said the weight of the situation hit her after the jury’s verdict.
“It’s over. People really know what I am, what I did, I’m going to prison,” said Miller.
Miller was granted an automatic appeal and nine years after her sentence an appellate judge determined that Cassaday’s suicide note shouldn’t have been used as evidence during the trial.
The judge ruled that Miller should be retried. Miller was free to post bond and leave prison.
“It was so much easier lying about it to myself,” said Miller. “It’s so much easier to look at yourself when you don’t have to look at yourself with the truth.”Prosecutors fought for three years to get Miller’s conviction reinstated. The hard work paid off when a court ruled that Cassaday’s suicide note was, in fact, admissible in court and that Miller would not be retried.
Miller was ordered back to prison.
Instead of filing another appeal, Miller said she was done lying. She sent a letter to the prosecutors confessing her guilt. She said in the letter that she didn’t want the Miller family and the Cassaday family to suffer anymore.
“There’s no way for me to change or undo what I did. It’s forever, and I can’t take it back,” said Miller. “I don’t feel that I deserve to live life and be happy when [Bruce and Jerry] don’t get that chance.”
Miller said she has chosen to publicly come forward with her story in an effort to find peace with herself.
“I still have a really hard time looking in the mirror knowing what I did,” said Miller. “I waited to tell the truth until I get nothing from it, but, hopefully, a sense of peace.”
Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES) — The California School for the Deaf in Riverside’s football team brought pride and triumph to the state last year, and now the high school football team is set to be recognized on the national stage Sunday at Super Bowl 56 in Inglewood, California.
The co-captains of the Riverside Cubs are set to join Billie Jean King and and other local football stars as honorary captains of the coin toss, the NFL announced Friday, as the league honors inclusion.
The four co-captains attending the Super Bowl are Trevin Adams, Christian Jimenez, Jory Valencia and Enos Zornoza.
The Cubs players and coaches use American Sign Language to communicate. Once considered underdogs, Riverside’s football team defied the odds with a nearly undefeated season last year that electrified spectators in California and beyond.
“This is indescribable,” Jimenez said in a video shared by CSDR upon being told about the invitation to the Super Bowl.
“I feel honored,” Valencia added.
Erika Thompson, a spokeswoman for CSDR told ABC News that the school is “thrilled” to have its players “defy stereotypes” and represent the deaf community at the Super Bowl.
“I hope this brings awareness of what the school has to offer for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, where they get the full range of experiences in academics, sports and leadership,” she said.
The NFL is also marking the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, a civil rights statute that bars discrimination based on sex.
King, a former world No. 1 tennis player and winner of 39 grand slam titles, including 12 in singles, is a longtime advocate for gender equality and inclusion in sports and beyond.
Members of the High School Girls Flag League of Champions and the girls youth tackle football players from the Inglewood Chargers and the Watts Rams will also join the coin toss, the NFL said.
“It is an honor to stand with these outstanding student athletes and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Title IX on one of the world’s biggest stages,” King said in a statement released by the NFL. “It’s hard to understand inclusion until you have been excluded, and I am proud to be part of this year’s Super Bowl Coin Toss and the NFL’s commitment to bring us together and make us stronger.”
After an undefeated season last year, the Cubs’ varsity football team won the division championship game, a first in the school’s 68-year history. And while they did not make it to the state championship after losing to Faith Baptist at the CIF Southern Section Division 2 championship, the team had already inspired many across California and beyond.
“This grit showcased to other football players and people across that country that the deaf community defies stereotypes, that they can do anything with hard work and dedication,” the NFL said in a statement.
Ahead of the division championship game, some of the players and their coach, Keith Adams, spoke with ABC News through an ALS translator.
“It’s inspiring for the deaf community quite honestly — 11 and 0. We’ve never experienced being this far in playoffs,” Adams said in the November 2021 interview. “The community is so excited, the morale has been uplifted, the self-esteem of our players — you can see a major difference.”
Asked what he hopes the Cubs’ story of triumph will teach others, Zornoza, who is taking part in the Super Bowl coin toss, said he hopes the attention they are getting nationwide will inspire other deaf kids and give them hope.
“We can do anything. Deaf people can do anything,” he told ABC News in November. “We’re not this stereotype that’s out there.”
“We’re breaking news that we can do it right,” Zornoza continued. “And not just our school here but other schools for the deaf can do it as well.”
The Super Bowl is set to take place at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, just outside Los Angeles, where the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will face off.
(WASHINGTON) — The Food and Drug Administration has authorized a new monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19, shown to hold up against the omicron variant and BA.2 subvariant.
The drug, called bebtelovimab from Eli Lilly, is a monoclonal therapy meant for COVID-19 patients as young as 12 who are at high risk for getting severely ill and who were recently infected, to keep them from getting even sicker and keep them out of the hospital.
The authorization comes after months of explosive spread of the omicron variant has squeezed an already finite arsenal of COVID-19 medicines.
Lilly’s previous monoclonal treatment was one of the two the government bought in bulk that have been shown to fail against omicron, leaving the federal government scrambling to stock up on functional omicron therapies. Meanwhile, the treatments that have been shown to work against omicron have been scarce — forcing difficult choices about which patients in need should get that limited supply.
On the eve of authorization, the Biden administration announced it had purchased 600,000 doses of bebtelovimab for at least $720 million. The plan is to get roughly 300,000 doses out this month, and another 300,000 in March. The contract also includes a future option for 500,000 more doses, if necessary.
The authorization brings the number of treatments for omicron in the U.S. to four, though production is still ramping up. The other options include the monoclonal therapy sotrovimab, from Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline; and two antiviral pills, Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck’s Molnupiravir.
Daniel Skovronsky, Eli Lilly’s chief scientific and medical officer and president of their research labs, said in an interview with ABC News that the company began working on the therapy more than a year ago — long before omicron emerged — in hopes of being “future proof” for a range of variants and anything else that might come down the road.
It was meant as a “break glass in case of emergency” solution, Skovronsky said.
But once the new variant caught on, which the mainstay treatments failed against, getting a new one authorized suddenly became critical.
“Once omicron was identified, there was urgency in making sure that this antibody worked against it, and working with the government to try and make it available as quickly as possible to patients,” Skovronsky said. “It’s an unusual situation where you’re trying to fight a disease that in some sense doesn’t exist yet. … We can’t protect ourselves from something wholly new that the world has never seen before.”
Lilly’s new drug is authorized to be given as an intravenous injection from a health care provider — a notable change from the arduous hourslong infusion that came with previous monoclonal antibodies, a process that requires a great deal of clinical manpower. It must be administered within seven days of symptom onset.
“Today’s action makes available another monoclonal antibody that shows activity against omicron, at a time when we are seeking to further increase supply,” Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement, calling the new emergency use authorization “an important step in meeting the need for more tools to treat patients as new variants of the virus continue to emerge.”
“We’re already working on the next generation antibodies, looking for things that bind in different ways than bebtelovimab so that in case this one ultimately is overcome by virus mutants we’ll have something else to offer,” Skovronsky said. “You have to stay one step ahead of this virus.”
ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
With Valentine’s Day taking place this Monday, Neil Young & Crazy Horse have debuted a new animated lyric video for their song “Don’t Forget Love,” which appears on the group’s latest album, Barn.
The clip, which was directed by Neil’s wife, actress Daryl Hannah, features a series of animated drawings created by Gary Ward. Among the many images depicted in the art are a human heart, a couple kissing, a hand flashing a peace sign, a hand holding a few roses, a rain cloud, a rainbow, the sun shining on the moon and the Earth, and animals including bears, an owl, a dove and a blackbird.
The delicate song features sparse instrumentation, driven by piano, with lyrics that encourage “don’t forget love” when negative things are happening in your life.
In a brief video interview with Young posted in December on his YouTube channel, Neil explains, “I wrote that song for myself so that whenever I start to lose it I can just listen to that and go, ‘I wrote that. Why can’t I just do that?’ So, you know, a lot of it’s cheap therapy. Very cheap.”
As previously reported, Barn was recorded last June in a restored 19th century barn Young owns in the Colorado Rockies, and was released in December. A documentary about the making of the album, also called Barn and which Hannah also directed, premiered around the same time as the record’s release, and currently is streaming for free on Neil’s YouTube channel.
(POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY, Okla.) — Joe Exotic, the larger-than-life Netflix star from the hit show “Tiger King: Murder Mayhem and Madness,” is speaking out from prison a month after being re-sentenced for a murder-for-hire plot against animal rights activist Carole Baskin and for violating the Lacy Act and Endangered Species Act.
Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was resentenced to 21 years in prison on charges of perpetrating the murder-for-hire scheme and for the killing and selling of tigers.
During his trial, it was alleged he had hired a hit man for $3,000 to travel from Oklahoma to Florida to murder Baskin. Separately, it was alleged he tried again to hire a hit man for $10,000 to murder Baskin in December 2017, but that person was actually an undercover FBI agent.
Exotic has adamantly maintained his innocence and vowed to appeal the conviction.
“How can you even expect somebody to go from Oklahoma to Florida to scope her out, however long that would take and back, on $3,000? That is absurd,” Joe Exotic told ABC News during a phone interview from Pottawatomie County Jail.
He added that he’s hoping to submit a motion for a new trial as early as this week.
Released on March 20, 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, millions tuned in to the seven-part docuseries that chronicled the life of Joe Exotic, the owner of the G.W. Zoo, where he imported and bred big cats.
In the nearly two years since the series was released, Netflix reports that the series has been streamed by 64 million viewers.
Exotic claims he’s not one of them.
“I have not seen nothing,” said Joe Exotic. “Look, I have received and answered back over 11,000 letters, but every letter told me — I get letters from 8-year-old kids to 95-year-old grandmothers — and every letter says it’s because I was unapologetic.”
“I stood up for what I believed in and because I’m not ashamed of who I am,” he added.
Baskin, the owner of Big Cat Rescue in Florida, had accused Exotic of animal abuse and ignited a long-standing dispute that bankrupted Exotic and his zoo.
Joe Exotic denied ever treating his animals badly.
“What are they calling treating animals badly? Keeping them in cages?” said Exotic. “If people saw my videos on the YouTube channel, I walk in a cage with 24 full-grown tigers and lions at a time. Do you think if I abuse them, they would allow that?”
The series also sparked interest in the cold case of the disappearance of Baskin’s ex-husband, Don Lewis.
Since Lewis’ disappearance in 1997, authorities have not identified any suspects and his body has never been found. During the series, Exotic claimed that Baskin fed Lewis to her tigers, a claim that Baskin has repeatedly denied.
While in custody, Exotic aimed to author a tell-all memoir that set the record straight, but said he was disappointed by the final product.
“Keep in mind, I didn’t promote that book because they edited my whole story… I’m disgusted by the way I’ve been exploited,” he said. “Get on the internet and Google ‘Joe Exotic’ and hit the shop button and look, everybody in the world is making money off of me, but me.”
Exotic is also dealing with early-stage prostate cancer while in prison. He had petitioned a judge last month to reduce his sentence based on the disease, but the term was only lessened from 22 years to 21.
“I’m losing weight real bad and the sores in my mouth are unbearable to live with all the time,” said Exotic. “But you know, in the three and a half years that I’ve been in custody, I’ve been taken to the hospital 43 times.”
Even while incarcerated, Exotic maintains a cult following. He said he wants his fans to keep up the support.
“They have seen the show. They’ve seen the characters. They’ve seen my lawyers provide some of the evidence. All I can say to them is keep believing in me,” said Exotic. “I’m not going to let you down. I love each and every one of you people.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon has ordered 3,000 more soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to Poland as tensions continued to mount about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, a senior defense official said Friday.
The deployment of the additional troops to Poland came as the White House warned that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could begin during the Olympics and urged all American citizens in Ukraine to leave the country over the next 24 to 48 hours.
“At the direction of the President, Secretary Austin today ordered to Poland the remaining 3,000 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Infantry Brigade Combat Team based at Fort Bragg, N.C.,” said a senior U.S. defense official. “These troops will depart Fort Bragg over the next couple of days. They are expected to be in place by early next week.”
The additional paratroopers will join the 1,700 soldiers from the same unit who began arriving in Poland earlier this week to help prepare the infrastructure needed if additional American forces were deployed to Poland.
Those soldiers were part of a deployment announced last week that included sending 300 soldiers from the 18th Airborne Corps headquarters unit to Germany and sending 1,000 soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Regiment based in Germany to Romania.
“They are being deployed to reassure our NATO allies, deter any potential aggression against NATO’s eastern flank, train with host-nation forces, and contribute to a wide range of contingencies,” said the senior defense official.
Those soldiers from the 82nd Airborne have been arriving at an airport in southeast Poland located 60 miles form the border with Ukraine. A U.S. official has told ABC News that these troops would be prepared to provide assistance to any American citizens fleeing Ukraine by land.
“These additional deployments are temporary in nature, meant to supplement for a brief time the more than 80,000 U.S. troops already in Europe on rotational and permanent orders,” said the senior defense official. The 3,000 troops now headed to Poland were not among the 8,500 troops based in the United States who had been put on “heightened alert” two weeks ago in case they needed to be deployed on short notice as part of the NATO Response Force.
Additional U.S. aircraft and accompanying personnel already in Europe have moved closer to NATO’s eastern flank as tensions have grown in recent days.
Eight American F-15 fighter jets along with about 130 troops with the 493 Fighter Squadron based in the United Kingdom arrived in Poland Thursday.
“The extra fighters will bolster readiness and Allied deterrence and defense as Russia continues military build-up in and around Ukraine,” a statement from U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa said.
Another squadron of Air Force F-16 fighters based in Germany arrived in Romania on Friday.
Additional naval power has also been sent to the European region, with four U.S.-based destroyers deployed to “participate in a range of maritime activities in support of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and our NATO allies,” according to the U.S. Navy.
While not confirming the deployment of the four ships is directly tied to tensions with Russia, a Navy official noted that they destroyers bring options to the region.
“One of the unique values of naval forces is their mobility and ability to deploy for a range of contingencies and operations,” the official said. “These deployments provide additional flexibility to the Sixth Fleet Commander.”
Sting‘s latest solo album, 2021’s The Bridge, features a song titled “For Her Love.” Now the former Police frontman has released a Spanish-language version of the tune called “Por Su Amor.”
The new track, which is available now globally via digital outlets, was recorded during Sting’s recent trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where he was inspired by the scenery of Baja, California, and the views of the Gulf of California.
The Spanish lyrics for “Por Su Amor” were written by musician, songwriter and producer Martin Kierszenbaum, who is also Sting’s manager. Martin also co-wrote of “For Her Love” and co-produced The Bridge album with Sting, as well as contributing contributed keyboards to “Por Su Amor” and The Bridge.
You can check out a lyric video for “Por Su Amor” at Sting’s official YouTube channel.
Sting will give “Por Su Amor” its premiere performance on the 2022 edition of the long-running Latin music awards show Premio Lo Nuestro, which will air February 24 on Univision.
Sting has recorded other songs in Spanish in the past, as well as in Portuguese and French.
