Legendary singer Dionne Warwick had to cancel a highly anticipated concert after encountering a medical incident.
“We regret to inform you that the Dionne Warwick performance on June 24, 2023 at Rivers Casino Des Plaines has been cancelled due to a medical incident,” read an email to ticket holders obtained by TMZ. The email also states all ticket purchases will get a refund.
According two the outlet, Dionne explained that she began experiencing problems on Thursday, June 15, leading to the unfortunate cancellation of the upcoming show. Despite this setback, Dionne remains hopeful and assured her fans that the concert will be rescheduled for a later date.
Fortunately, the 82-year-old singer is recovering well from the minor medical incident and has upcoming appearances in New York and Delaware next month.
(MEXICO CITY) — When responding to the scene where two American tourists were found dead in their luxury hotel room in Mexico this week, paramedics told ABC News that they began to feel “intoxication symptoms such as hypoxia and racing heartbeat.”
The paramedics said they decided to leave because they felt the scene was unsafe. They then took themselves to a local hospital for treatment, they told ABC News.
The victims had no vital signs when the paramedics entered the room at Hyatt’s Rancho Pescadero on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on Tuesday at around 9:10 p.m. local time. The lifeless body of a woman was found on the bed, while the lifeless body of a man was found in the fetal position on the floor of the shower, which was still on when the paramedics arrived, they told ABC News.
The victims had been dead for about 10 or 11 hours when they were found and there were no signs of violence or an altercation. The cause of death was “intoxication by substance to be determined,” the State Attorney General’s Office of Baja California Sur said in a statement on Thursday.
The attorney general’s office identified the victims as 28-year-old Abby Lutz and 41-year-old John Heathco, both from Newport Beach, California.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State confirmed the death of two American citizens in northwestern Mexico’s Baja California Sur state this week.
Rancho Pescadero is a Hyatt property and boutique beachfront hotel in the scenic village of El Pescadero, nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the foothills of the Sierra de Laguna mountain range. The hotel’s general manager, Henar Gil, said in a statement on Thursday that his staff does “not believe that the cause of death was related to any issues with the hotel’s infrastructure or facilities, including carbon monoxide or a gas of any kind.”
“Beyond anything else, on behalf of the entire Rancho Pescadero team, we are deeply affected and sorry for the loss the families and loved ones of Abby and John are enduring. This is a shocking and unimaginable situation, and we are committed to supporting and treating them with understanding and compassion,” Gil added. “We will continue to cooperate with authorities as they look into the cause of this terrible tragedy.”
Lutz’s family said they “are shocked and saddened to hear about the passing of our beloved Abby.”
“Abby had an adventurous spirit and a wonderfully kind heart,” they said in a statement on Thursday. “She loved to travel, see new places, and share her zeal for life with those around her. We ask for your thoughts and prayers for our family during this very difficult time.”
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. officials are emphasizing the importance of face-to-face diplomacy as the nation’s top diplomat prepares to embark on the first visit to China by a sitting secretary of state in nearly five years — but insisting they are “clear-eyed” about the long odds of improving the strained relationship amid continued acts of aggression by Beijing.
The Biden administration emphasized the need for “intense diplomacy” with China despite the country’s military carrying out dangerous provocations earlier this month in the Taiwan Strait, according to U.S. officials.
“Intense competition requires intense diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into confrontation or conflict and that’s what we intend for this visit,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday.
Timing of the trip
Last week, White House spokesperson John Kirby condemned a close call in the Taiwan Strait that occurred days prior when a Chinese warship crossed just about 150 yards across an American destroyer’s bow, a move the Pentagon described an “unsafe maritime interaction.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s initially planned to journey to Beijing in February, but his travel was scrapped by the Biden administration at the last minute after a Chinese spy balloon was spotted hovering over sensitive sites in the U.S.
After repeatedly saying Blinken’s visit would be rescheduled “when the time is right,” the White House isn’t clearly explaining why it’s moving forward with the trip now.
ABC News’ Mary Bruce asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, “Why is this now the right time?” during a briefing on Wednesday.
“We believe that we are in the right footing, especially in the work that the president has done the last two years. When you look at the economy, when you look at the competition, and look at what we have been able to do. And so we want to continue to have those open lines of conversation. And this is about diplomacy, which is why the secretary of state is heading is heading to China on Saturday,” Jean-Pierre answered.
President Joe Biden confirmed Thursday that he had spoken with Blinken ahead of his trip, but he would not say what he hopes the secretary can achieve during the visit.
Months after the spy balloon incident, China’s efforts to surveil the U.S. are still a hot button issue. Earlier this week, Blinken addressed Beijing’s recently exposed intelligence-collection activities in Cuba and claimed diplomacy had slowed the country’s efforts to expand its military power.
Although the relationship remains fraught and senior State Department officials don’t anticipate a turnaround in the near future, they say there are still benefits to direct diplomatic engagement.
“We’re not going to Beijing with the intent of having some sort of breakthrough or transformation in the way that we deal with one another,” Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink said. “We’re coming to Beijing with a realistic, confident approach and a sincere desire to manage our competition in the most responsible way possible.”
Blinken’s agenda
Still, senior State Department officials say that Blinken has three clear goals for his visit: keeping lines of communication with China open to avoid potential conflict, promoting American interests and exploring potential areas of cooperation.
A particular area of focus for Blinken will be revitalizing channels between the two countries’ armed forces. Although diplomatic ties have warmed somewhat in recent weeks, dialogue between high-level military officials has been practically nonexistent.
That facet of the relationship was further strained last month when China rebuffed an invitation to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and a summit in Singapore.
“We are going to continue to advocate for appropriate military-to-military contact and dialogues. We think that is an essential feature for maintaining communication. And these lines of communication can be critical during a crisis,” said deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell.
Campbell added that the U.S. has “advocated for these discussions consistently” but said “China has resisted some of those efforts.”
Officials also said that China’s fentanyl production and trafficking activities would be on Blinken’s agenda, as well as the American citizens wrongfully detained in China.
Despite intense preparations that have been underway for weeks, Blinken’s schedule for the trip remains largely in flux, with the State Department confirming only that he is expected to meet with senior Chinese officials.
That will likely include China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang, and Wang Yi — China’s top diplomat who met with Blinken in Germany after the spy balloon incident. U.S. officials later described that interaction as remarkably contentious.
Whether Blinken will meet with China’s President Xi Jinping during the upcoming trip is still not clear.
The future of U.S.-Chinese relations
Blinken’s visit to Beijing could also pave the way for future engagement between the highest levels of leadership. Biden and Xi met in Indonesia last November, and there is speculation they could hold another in-person discussion later this year.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has attempted to set a firm tone in the runup to Blinken’s visit. In a readout of a call between the Secretary of State and Foreign Minister Gang, the ministry warned Washington to “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs.”
But the U.S. sees what China classifies as “internal affairs” as pivotal international issues — specifically, maintaining peace in Taiwan and the South China Sea as China makes preparations to invade the island nation. U.S. intelligence has indicated Xi is instructing his military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan.
Officials said Blinken would raise both matters during his visit and promised he would continue to “push back” on China’s “provocations” in the region.
“I think cross-strait issues and issues related to Taiwan have always been among the most important and challenging and sensitive issues between the United States and China,” Campbell said.
“And I think you can anticipate, as has been the case in every bilateral meeting I’ve been in with the Chinese, that there’ll be a candid exchange on the cross-strait situation,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — Three young brothers — aged just 7, 4 and 3 years old — have allegedly been shot and killed by their father and their mother has been wounded at a home in Ohio, police said.
The triple homicide occurred at approximately 4:15 p.m. on Thursday when authorities the Clermont County Communications Center received a call from an unknown female who was screaming that “her babies had been shot.” A second call was placed just three minutes later from a person passing by who reported a young female running down the street screaming that “her father was killing everyone.”
Clermont County Sheriff’s Road Patrol Deputies immediately responded to the residence on Laurel Lindale Road in Monroe Township, approximately 26 miles southeast of downtown Cincinnati, and found an adult male — later identified as 32-year-old Chad Doerman — sitting on a step outside of the home where they detained him for questioning without incident.
But when deputies began their investigation, they discovered “three unresponsive gunshot victims in the yard of the residence,” according to a press release from the Clermont County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities immediately began life-saving measures on the victims until Monroe Fire/EMS officials arrived on the scene minutes later.
“All life saving measures were unsuccessful and all three gunshot victims succumbed to their injuries while on scene,” police said. “A fourth gunshot victim, later identified as an adult female age 34, was also located outside of the residence. The female sustained what appeared to be a single gunshot wound to her hand [and was] non-life threatening.”
The injured woman was taken by Monroe Township EMS to University Hospital Cincinnati where Sheriff Leahy from Clermont County notified her that her three sons — aged 7, 4 and 3 — had died in the shooting.
The suspect and father of the three deceased juveniles, Chad Doerman, was taken to the Clermont County Sheriff’s Office and interviewed by detectives. He was subsequently charged with three counts of aggravated murder and taken to the Clermont County Jail where he is currently being held without bond, police said.
Clermont County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that there were no signs of forced entry into the home and that they were not looking for any other suspects involved in the murders.
Doerman is due in court at 10 a.m. on Friday morning for his arraignment.
Meanwhile, the Clermont County Coroner’s Office responded to the scene on Thursday and transported the bodies of the deceased brothers to the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office for autopsies.
“The investigation remains ongoing and will be reviewed in its entirety with the Clermont County Prosecutor’s Office for presentation to the Grand Jury for consideration of additional charges,” authorities said. “Additional information will be released as it develops.”
(NEW YORK) — A judge has set an early 2024 trial date for writer E. Jean Carroll’s original 2019 defamation case against former President Donald Trump.
Judge Lewis Kaplan set a trial date of Jan. 15, 2024, for the case, in which Carroll claims then-President Trump defamed her in 2019 when he said she was “not my type” while denying that he raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
Trump has denied all accusations.
Last month, in a separate suit, a jury found Trump liable for battery and for defaming Carroll when he said in a 2022 Truth Social post that her allegations were “a Hoax and a lie” and saying again that “This woman is not my type!”
Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, added the charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.
Jury members, who found that Trump did not rape Carroll but sexually abused her, awarded Carroll a total of $5 million in the suit.
The Jan. 15 date puts the start of the upcoming trial one week before the scheduled date of the Iowa Republican caucuses, as Trump campaigns for a second term as president. However, Trump is not required to attend the civil trial, just as he did not attend the other trial last month.
Judge Kaplan ruled earlier this week that Carroll could add to the original suit allegedly defamatory statements Trump made last month after he was found liable for sexually assaulting her.
Trump has argued that the Justice Department should be substituted as the defendant in the original case because, at the time of his allegedly defamatory statements, he was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government.
Such a ruling would make the case go away, as the federal government cannot be sued for defamation.
(NEW YORK) — Scientists have gathered further evidence that ocean waters are continuing to warm along with the rest of the planet.
Ocean temperatures reached record-breaking highs for the month of May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced during its monthly climate call on Thursday.
Four main factors are contributing to such historic warming of global sea surface temperatures: human-induced climate change, a developing El Nino event, effects from the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano eruption and a new shipping emissions policy aimed at reducing air pollution, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Some regions are experiencing temperatures up to 7 degrees higher than average for this time of year. In Cabo Verde Island, where hurricanes typically form, the water is typically 75 degrees Fahrenheit but is currently measuring at 82.4 degrees.
Combined, land and ocean temperatures in May were the third warmest on record, with surface temperatures increasing about 0.97 degrees Celsius, or 1.75 degrees Fahrenheit, above the 20th century average, Rocky Bilotta, climatologist for the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, told reporters.
Temperatures were above average throughout most of North America, South America and Africa. Parts of Western Europe, Northwestern Russia, Southeast Asia and the Arctic also experienced warmer than average temperatures this month, Bilotta said.
In the contiguous United States, May temperatures averaged 62.4 degrees Fahrenheit, 2.2 degrees above the average for that time of year, Bilotta said.
The warmest global record for the time period between March and May was also reached, according to NOAA.
2023 is very likely to rank among the 10 warmest years on record, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information statistical analysis that was released in April. Should warmer ocean and air surface temperatures continue, 2023 could become the warmest year on record.
Scientists anticipate that the current high temperatures could increase in the coming weeks and set record-shattering numbers, which could spell disaster for coastal communities all over the world.
Warmer ocean waters can contribute to more powerful tropical storms and impact marine life. In addition, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and can increase potential flooding events. Melting sea ice in the Arctic is also causing sea levels to rise, which is eroding coastlines.
Earlier this week, thousands of fish washed up at the Quintana Beach County Park on Texas’ Gulf Coast, likely due to warming waters, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Kills and Spills team.
“Fish kills like this are common in the summer when temperatures increase,” the department said in a statement. “If there isn’t enough oxygen in the water, fish can’t ‘breathe.’ Low dissolved oxygen in many cases is a natural occurrence.”
(HARTFORD, Conn.) — Zaid Deje Langs-Myers, an 18-year-old University of Connecticut student, was shot and killed in Hartford, Tuesday night, according to police.
Hartford Police responded to a report of a motor vehicle crash only to find Langs-Myers suffering from gunshot wounds outside the vehicle.
According to police, he was pronounced dead after being transported to a nearby hospital by Hartford Fire and officers.
Police were able to determine that the shooting occurred at a different location than where Langs-Myers was found.
No arrests have been made in connection with the shooting.
The Hartford Police Major Crimes and Crime Scene Divisions is investigating.
“The UConn community is deeply shocked and grief stricken by this tragic loss and our thoughts are with Zaid’s family and friends,” UConn said in a statement to ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump last fall rejected a proposal from one of his attorneys who was attempting to keep charges off the table in special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into Trump’s handling of classified documents, multiple sources told ABC News.
The attorney, Christopher Kise, wanted to propose a settlement with the Department of Justice that would preclude charges — but the idea was quickly shut down by Trump and some members of his team who believed in a more adversarial approach to federal investigators, the sources said.
Based on Smith’s investigation, Trump was charged on Tuesday with 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Kise, who never approached prosecutors about the idea of a settlement, appeared with Trump during his arraignment Tuesday. News of the settlement idea was first reported by the Washington Post.
The former president has denied all wrongdoing in the case, saying that his handling of all documents was in line with the Presidential Records Act. Officials with the National Archives and Records Administration, however, have said that the act requires a president to separate personal and presidential documents “before leaving office.”
The episode represents one of several times that Trump’s lawyers and advisers had urged him and his team to be more cooperative with investigators as authorities pursued the return of classified documents, as sources previously told ABC News.
The news comes as Trump narrows down his list of potential attorneys as he and his team work to expand his legal team following the resignation last Friday of two of his lawyers, Jim Trusty and John Rowley.
Barry Manilow turns 80 on Saturday, June 17, but he’s not looking for anyone to rent out the “Copacabana” to throw him a huge party. In fact, he’d rather ignore the whole thing.
“I’m turning everything down,” he says of friends’ and family’s efforts celebrate his big day. “I don’t like my birthdays anyway. They just scare me. This one … I don’t know what to expect. I don’t.”
“This is a big number, and I never thought I’d get this far,” he tells ABC Audio. “I never thought I’d reach this. My family all died in their early 70s, so I have a blank slate. I don’t know what is about to hit me.”
He calls the milestone “exciting on the one hand and terrifying on the other.”
But even without party plans, Manilow knows what he’ll be doing the night of his birthday. “By accident, I’m going to be onstage on my birthday,” he says. “So God only knows what that’s going to be.”
No doubt that night will involve fans singing “Happy Birthday” to the legendary entertainer, and in terms of his career, he’s got plenty to celebrate. He’s won two Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy; he’s been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame; he’s scored 13 #1 hits on the Adult Contemporary chart; and he’s sold more than 85 million records worldwide, making him one of the world’s bestselling artists.
And as he turns 80, he’s got even more to be happy about: After years of waiting, his original musical Harmony is heading to Broadway; he’s got a successful Las Vegas residency; and he still tours around the country when he wants to.
Global country superstar Luke Combs now has his own hit with a cover version of Tracy Chapman‘s 1988 top 10 single, “Fast Car.” The song is one Luke says he’s loved ever since he first heard it when he was 5.
“That song’s just been a huge part of my life for a really long time. It’s one of the first songs I remember hearing,” Luke explains. “It’s probably my first favorite song that I ever had. [I] spent tons of time listening to it with my dad in his pickup truck when I was a kid.”
“It just caught my attention,” Luke says of the song, which is about a couple who want to break free of their struggles. “Ever since I could play guitar, it was one of the first songs I wanted to learn … I never forgot it. It never came out of rotation.”
While in college, Luke would cover “Fast Car” all the time, but after he made a video of himself performing it during lockdown, fans called for him to release it.
“The fans were like, ‘Man, you ought to do an official version of this,'” he told reporters. “And … it just finally felt like the right time … and so I’m thankful to have been able to do that.”
Luke also likes to think about all the younger people who haven’t heard the song before.
“I think there will be a lot of people that would be exposed to that song for the first time that will fall in love with it as much as I did,” he notes. “So that was the hopes in recording it.”
You can find “Fast Car” on Luke’s latest album, Gettin’ Old.
