(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’ll deliver a live national address on Wednesday at 9 p.m. from the White House.
“It has been a great year for our Country, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!” Trump posted on his social media platform.
“I look forward to seeing you then,” he said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(DEXTER, Kan.) — Class is out early for one Kansas school this holiday season.
Dexter Schools USD #471 announced Monday that they dismissed students and staff three days early for winter break due to widespread illness. Classes are scheduled to resume Monday, Jan. 5.
“We are going through a tremendous amount of sickness right now and it seems to be spreading at a very high rate,” the Facebook announcement reads, in part.
“Not only are we concerned with student and staff sickness now we don’t want to continue to spread the sickness and end up with students taking it to their extended families (grandma and grandpa) over the holiday break,” the post adds.
K.B. Criss, the school’s superintendent and principal, told ABC News that the rural K-12 school has between 250 and 300 students, and he believed around 25% to 35% of students were absent within the first hour of school Monday morning.
“The phone was ringing off the wall of kids being sick,” he said. “I think by nine o’clock, we had between 40 and 50 families call, and that’s a large percent of our student body.”
Criss added that most of the illnesses seemed to be respiratory, but staff and students were experiencing a wide variety of symptoms.
“The symptoms were ranging from all over the place. We had staff that was not only throwing up, but had diarrhea. We had body aches, fevers, bronchitis, strep throat, and the one common thing with all of it was terrible headaches,” Criss said, adding that other leading symptoms included congestion, coughs, and fever.
Some students and staff were diagnosed with RSV and the flu, according to Criss.
According to the school’s website, free testing is available for Flu A/B, RSV, Strep A and COVID.
Kansas currently has a low level of respiratory illness across the state, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationally, “the amount of acute respiratory illness causing people to seek health care is low,” according to the CDC, as is COVID-19 activity.
“Seasonal influenza activity continues to increase in most areas of the country,” according to the CDC, while RSV activity is increasing “in many Southeastern, Southern, and mid-Atlantic states.”
Dexter Schools USD #471 is located about 70 miles southeast of Wichita, near the Oklahoma border.
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If you didn’t get to see Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere in theaters, you’ll now have a new chance to see the film.
The movie about Bruce Springsteen’s efforts making his 1982 solo album, Nebraska, is set to hit digital platforms, including Amazon, Prime Video and Apple TV, on Dec. 23. It will also be released on 4K Blu-ray on Jan. 20, with the release including the four-act documentary Making Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.
The documentary’s four parts cover the process of adapting Warren Zanes’ 2023 book, Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, for the big screen; a look at the album Nebraska; a deep dive into actor Jeremy Allen White’s process of becoming Springsteen for the film; and what it took to capture Springsteen’s New Jersey during the era of the movie.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, directed by Scott Cooper, opened in theaters in October.
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Queens of the Stone Age‘s Alive in the Catacombs is now streaming on YouTube.
The concert film was recorded during a July 2024 performance in the famed Catacombs of Paris. It was previously available for purchase via the QotSA website and screened in theaters.
Queens have also uploaded the accompanying behind-the-scenes documentary Alive in Paris and Before to YouTube.
After first premiering Alive in the Catacombs, QotSA embarked on the Catacombs U.S. tour, which featured special arrangements inspired by the Paris experience.
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![Kelsea Ballerini closes 2025 as she “Sit[s] in Parks” with kangaroos](https://s3.amazonaws.com/syndication.abcaudio.com/files/2025-12-16/M_KelseaBalleriniCMAAwardsSwing2025ABC.jpg "Kelsea Ballerini closes 2025 as she “Sit[s] in Parks” with kangaroos")
Kelsea Ballerini‘s touring year has come to a close with her Saturday night show Down Under.
“Brisbane, i couldn’t have asked for a better way to end the year and this life changing tour,” she posted on Monday. “thank you to all 11,000 of you for being one of the best crowds we had the honor to play for this year, and thank you for having cute animals to sit in parks with on off days.”
Of course, “I Sit in Parks” is the lead single from Kelsea’s new Mount Pleasant EP. One of the photos included in her post shows her on a green lawn in an area filled with kangaroos.
Kelsea went on to express her grief over the Sunday shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that left 15 dead and more than 40 injured.
“also want to say how truly heartbroken i am at the horrific attack at Bondi,” Kelsea’s post continues. “there just aren’t the right words, but my heart is with the families grieving the loss of their loved ones, and the hundreds of people grieving the loss of what once felt safe. praying for our world.”
So far, we don’t know much about Kelsea’s plans for 2026, as she hasn’t announced any tour plans beyond a couple shows in June.
You can check out her just-released video for the Mount Pleasant track “Emerald City” on YouTube now.
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Nonprofit Freedom Forum will launch the inaugural Freely Festival in April, and it has tapped T-Pain and Janelle Monáe, among others, to take the stage.
The festival will “celebrate the power of music and the constitutional rights that make creative expression possible,” according to a press release, via “purposeful entertainment, artist storytelling, and interactive experiences that bring free expression to life in a way that feels relevant and resonant.”
It will take place April 8, 2026, at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, also featuring performances by The Killers, Dominic Fike and Avery Anna. A presale for the show begins Thursday at FreelyFest.org, with a general sale to follow if tickets remain.
Freedom Forum is “one of the nation’s leading voices on the First Amendment and the five freedoms it protects,” as per the website.
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Since she became a pop superstar, there have been many times that Olivia Rodrigo has gotten to meet some of her heroes — but she says one celebrity encounter in particular is probably her #1 “WTF moment.”
Olivia is the guest on the Dec. 16 episode of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s new Music Makes Us podcast, hosted by Kathleen Hanna of legendary riot grrrl band Bikini Kill. When Kathleen asks Olivia about her “WTF” moments, Olivia mentions having Lorde in the audience when she appeared on Saturday Night Live and performing with The Cure‘s Robert Smith at the Glastonbury Festival this year.
“Kinda the biggest one is, I used to write One Direction fan fiction when I was in elementary school,” Olivia said. “Many years later, I hung out with Harry Styles and we, like, got tea and we, like, walked around. And I got home and I was like, ‘What the f***?’ I feel like I, like, wrote that in a fan fiction and now I like lived it, like that is so crazy how that can happen in your life.”
“He’s so sweet,” she added. “If I told 10-year-old Olivia, she’d be like, ‘Shut the f*** up, you’re lying!'”
During the interview, Olivia also said that the album she goes back to when she needs to “reconnect” with herself is Alanis Morissette‘s Jagged Little Pill.
“For some reason that album, just, like, every part of what makes a human being a human being, it feels like it’s encapsulated in that record,” she said. “There’s so much anger and spite and jealousy but also so much joy and hope, all like intertwined into each other in such a beautiful way.”
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Queens of the Stone Age‘s Josh Homme and KISS‘ Gene Simmons are among the artists playing a tribute show to late AC/DC singer Bon Scott.
The concert will take place Feb. 3 at the Avalon Hollywood in Los Angeles. It doubles as a 60th birthday celebration for comedian Dean Delray, who will be hosting the night and also handling lead vocals.
Other performers include Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk, Primus guitarist Larry “Ler” LaLonde, Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez, former Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman and former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee.
For ticket info, visit DeanDelray.com.
Scott died in 1980 at age 33. AC/DC then recruited vocalist Brian Johnson for their next album, 1980’s Back in Black. Johnson remains AC/DC’s singer today.
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The title and official teaser trailer for Steven Spielberg‘s newest film have been released.
Universal Pictures announced Tuesday the movie will be called Disclosure Day. The studio also shared the film’s first trailer.
Disclosure Day, which returns Spielberg to his extraterrestrial roots, arrives in theaters on June 12, 2026.
Emily Blunt stars as a TV weather woman from Kansas City in the upcoming film. The trailer finds her unable to hold herself together while broadcasting live on air as she is seemingly possessed by something.
Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo also star in the thriller, which is based on a story by Spielberg.
“If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?” the film’s official logline asks. “This summer, the truth belongs to seven billion people. We are coming close to … Disclosure Day.”
David Koepp, the writer of Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, wrote the screenplay for this new movie.
“People keep wondering. Encountering the unknown. They are starved for the truth!” Domingo’s character says in the teaser.
Spielberg is the top-grossing director of all time. He previously explored stories about extraterrestrial life in the films E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and War of the Worlds.
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(SYDNEY) — A Sydney man is being praised as a hero for disarming one of the alleged shooters in the Hanukkah attack that left 15 dead and 42 injured at Australia’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, as seen in video obtained by ABC News
The video shows a man, identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed, 43, running towards one of the alleged shooters. He’s then seen disarming the alleged gunman before pointing his weapon back at him, prompting him to walk away.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited al-Ahmed in the hospital and told him “your courage is inspiring,” according to video of the visit posted to social media.
“Ahmed, you are an Australian hero. You put yourself at risk to save others, running towards danger on Bondi Beach and disarming a terrorist. In the worst of times, we see the best of Australians. And that’s exactly what we saw on Sunday night. On behalf of every Australian, I say thank you,” Albanese said on X.
The fruit seller was having lunch in the area with a friend when the shooting unfolded and he intervened, according to his brother, Huthaifa.
“I’m really proud about my brother,” he told ABC News.
“He’s a good man. He’s brave,” he said.
The father of two was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for bullet wounds. His brother said he is recovering in the hospital, but is not 100% yet.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns called him a “real-life hero.”
“Last night, his incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk,” Minns posted on Instagram while sharing a photo with al-Ahmed in the hospital.
“It was an honour to spend time with him just now and to pass on the thanks of people across NSW. There is no doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for Ahmed’s selfless courage,” he added.
At Sunday night’s National Menorah Lighting in Washington, D.C., Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the director of advocacy group American Friends of Lubavitch, praised al-Ahmed’s heroism and asked for prayers for his recovery.
“I ask all those across the community and beyond — here, and around the world — to please pray for the recovery of Ahmed al-Ahmed, someone who is not a member of the Jewish community, but gave up his safety and wellbeing to stop one of the gunmen and thus prevent even further loss of life. May he recover speedy and fully,” Shemtov said.
A GoFundMe page for al-Ahmed has raised almost $1.5 million with thousands of donations.
“We’re seeing an outpouring of love for Ahmed al Ahmed following his heroic actions at Bondi Beach,” the site posted on X.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman also shared the fundraiser on his X account Sunday, donating $99,999.
Mohamed Fateh al-Ahmed told reporters that his son is “a hero.”
“He served in the police, he has the passion to defend people,” he said.
The victims of Sunday’s mass shooting ranged in ages 10 to 87, and the alleged gunmen are father and son, aged 50 and 24, officials said. Their names have not been released, but authorities said the father is dead and the son was hospitalized.
Six firearms were collected from the scene alongside two improvised explosives, according to officials.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the attack “an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism” and “an act of terrorism,” in a video shared on his Instagram account.
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