Jethro Tull’s new album, RökFlöte, drops Friday, and for their latest release frontman Ian Anderson was inspired by the characters and gods of old Norse mythology and paganism, in part because he didn’t know much about it.
“The reason that I had rather ignored that in my studies of comparative religion over the many years is because it was somewhat overworked in terms of holding a dark fascination,” he tells ABC Audio. “But then I thought, well, that shouldn’t be a good reason to put me off.”
Anderson says he wanted to approach the subject “in a sensitive way,” one that “allows me to look at that particular subject matter without feeling that I’m imitating some Norwegian heavy metal band.”
Anderson says he has no expectations about what Jethro Tull fans may take away from the record, noting, “I’m not trying to sell them a particular set of ideas or a particular set of beliefs. I’m just suggesting, you know, here are some lyrics, here’s some music, and you examine it, see if you like it.”
RökFlöte is Jethro Tull’s second album in two years, following 2022’s The Zealot Gene. And it doesn’t sound like Anderson has any intention of slowing down. He says he’s already started work on the band’s next project, sharing, “I will be turning my attention to that again during the weeks and months to come.”
The season finale of the beloved sitcom Abbott Elementary airs Wednesday night and Sheryl Lee Ralph, who stars as Barbara Howard in the series, is dishing to ABC Audio what viewers can expect to see.
“It’s a bit unexpected,” she teases.
“And once again, you’re going to learn something new about Barbara,” the actress adds. “You’re going to see some things that you’ve been looking for and maybe, well, I don’t know how they’re going to turn out, but I know one thing. It’s going to keep you watching and looking forward to season 3.”
With two seasons under her belt as the old-school kindergarten teacher who has also taken on the role of a maternal figure to some, Ralph shares what she loves about the role.
“I love the fact that this is a wonderful character. She is fully living and invested in her life. She loves what she does. She loves her career as a teacher. She loves the students that she teaches year after year,” she explains. “And you can see through the episodes that she will go to the limit to try to make sure that things are set up properly for her students because she wants them to succeed. And I love that about her.”
Abbott Elementary, which also stars Quinta Brunson, Tyler James Williams, Janelle James, Lisa Ann Walter, Chris Perfetti, and William Stanford Davis, has also had quite a few celebrity guest stars including Leslie Odom Jr. and Taraji P. Henson. So who’s on Ralph’s list of dream guest stars?
“Why not Robert De Niro? I mean, that would be great,” she says excitedly, before offering another suggestion. “Oh, we could have Whoopi [Goldberg] back.” (AUDIO IS ABC 1-ON-1)
Catch the season two finale of Abbott Elementary at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — Tyre Nichols’ family plans to sue the city of Memphis, Tennessee and its police department over his death following a violent traffic stop in the city, their attorneys said.
Nichols, 29, died three days after he was beaten by police during a Jan. 7 traffic stop. Body camera footage of the altercation showed officers striking Nichols repeatedly.
His family’s attorneys — Ben Crump, Antonio Romanucci and local counsel, retired Judge Earnestine Hunt Dorse — said they will announce the filing of a civil lawsuit against the city and its police department on Wednesday.
The attorneys also plan to sue Memphis police for “intentional infliction of emotional distress for lying to his mother,” Crump’s office said in a statement.
Members of Nichols’ family will be attending a Wednesday afternoon press briefing outside the Circuit Court Clerk’s Office in Memphis to announce the filing, Crump’s office said.
ABC News has reached out to the city of Memphis for comment on the pending litigation.
All five officers who were directly involved in the beating have been charged with second-degree murder. The officers all pleaded not guilty in their first court appearance on Feb. 17.
Seven other police officers were terminated following the incident, according to city of Memphis chief legal officer Jennifer Sink.
The incident has also sparked a Department of Justice review of the Memphis Police Department’s use-of-force and de-escalation policies.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Chi Cubs 0, Oakland 0
Milwaukee 6, Seattle 5
Philadelphia 7, Chi White Sox 4
Chi White Sox 3, Philadelphia 0
Tampa Bay 10, Cincinnati 0
Baltimore 1, Washington 0
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Detroit 4, Cleveland 3
Detroit 1, Cleveland 0
LA Angels 5, NY Yankees 2
Boston 5, Minnesota 4
Texas 12, Kansas City 2
Toronto 4, Houston 2
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Atlanta 8, San Diego 1
L.A. Dodgers 5, NY Mets 0
Miami 4, San Francisco 2
Arizona 8, St. Louis 7
Pittsburgh 5, Colorado 3
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
Phoenix 123, LA Clippers 109 (Series tied 1-1)
Boston 119, Atlanta 106 (Boston leads 2-0)
Cleveland 107, New York 90 (Series tied 1-1)
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
Winnipeg 5, Vegas 1 (Winnipeg leads 1-0)
Seattle 3, Colorado 1 (Seattle leads 1-0)
NY Rangers 5, New Jersey 1 (NY leads 1-0)
Tampa Bay 7, Toronto 3 (Tampa Bay leads 1-0)
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — The Orlando-based import export company Metalhouse LLC touts itself as a “highly reputable global trading partner for steel products” but federal prosecutors said the company’s president was anything but reputable.
The U.S. Department of Justice arrested businessman John Can Unsalan on charges that he aided in a three-year scheme to violate U.S. sanctions against oligarch Sergey Kurchenko, a Ukrainian national who made his fortune selling natural gas.
According to the indictment, Unsalan provided Kurchenko with more than $150 million in return for steelmaking materials.
“The arrest of John Can Unsalan should serve as a warning to those who seek to do business with sanctioned individuals or entities that endanger the security of the United States and our allies,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The Justice Department is relentlessly pursuing those whose seek to evade sanctions imposed against the Russian regime and whose crimes enable the regime to continue its unjust, illegal war in Ukraine.”
Kurchenko was sanctioned in 2015 for his role in misappropriating state assets of Ukraine.
He controlled two sanctioned companies — Kompaniya Gaz-Alyans, OOO, based in the Russian Federation, and ZAO Vneshtorgservis based in the Russian-occupied Georgian region of South Ossetia — which were sanctioned in 2018 for acting on behalf of and providing material support to the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in the separatist-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine.
Unsalan engaged in trade with these sanctioned individuals and entities to procure steelmaking equipment and raw material despite knowing that Kurchenko, Gaz-Alyans and Vneshtorgservis were subject to U.S. sanctions that prohibited Unsalan from doing business with them, the indictment said.
The Florida businessman is charged with one count of conspiring to violate and evade U.S. sanctions, 10 counts of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, one count of conspiring to commit international money laundering and 10 counts of international money laundering.
He faces up to 20 years in prison.
“As highlighted by this arrest, we are firmly committed to enforcing the sanctions imposed by the United States against Russia for its malevolent military invasion of Ukraine,” U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg said.
The investigation was led by the Justice Department’s KleptoCapture task force, which has been seizing assets of sanctioned oligarchs and cracking down on people who allegedly help them evade sanctions.
(WASHINGTON) — The Air Force on Tuesday said it has begun its own investigation into how a young airman allegedly was able to access possibly hundreds of highly classified documents he’s accused of posting on the internet.
Top officials also announced that the unit 21-year-old Airman 1st Class Teixeira was assigned to — Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts — has been removed from its intelligence mission and its work is now being done by other units.
“I’ve tasked our inspector general to go look at the unit and anything associated with this leak that could have gone wrong from the point of view of implementing our policies — to see what things allowed this to happen,” Secretary of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told a Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.
An Air Force statement explained that the IG’s review would “investigate overall compliance with policy, procedures, and standards, including the unit environment and compliance at the 102nd Intelligence Wing related to the release of national security information.”
“The 102nd Intelligence Wing is not currently performing its assigned intelligence mission,” said Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokesperson. “The mission has been temporarily reassigned to other organizations within the Air Force.”
“There is a full court press going on about this,” Kendall told senators. “We’re all disturbed by it and we’re working very very hard to get to the bottom of it and take corrective action.”
Members of the congressional panel expressed disbelief that Teixeira allegedly had been able to leak information on to the Discord website for months without being detected.
“How could this guardsman take this information and distribute it electronically for weeks, if not months, and nobody knew about it?” said the subcommittee’s chairman, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana.
“It appears that this was going on for many months without the airman allegedly being caught. And when he was caught, it was because of investigative journalism, not the controls within the Air Force,” said GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. “That is equally disturbing.”
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown told the committee that the Air Force has procedures in place to protect classified information but “obviously in this case this process fell apart.”
Brown provided the first indications that while Teixeira had a highly classified TS-SCI (Top Secret – Sensitive Compartmented Information) clearance he did not have a “need to know” access to the documents as part of his job as a IT specialist.
“The aspect of this particular airman, for his particular job he had access to information, but he didn’t necessarily have need to know for some of the information,” said Brown.
“Because of his duties he had access to some aspects based on his job as a cyber administrator. He took advantage of that access,” said Brown.
Brown also said the Air Force would put in place a service-wide review of security procedures to take place over the next 30 days within each Air Force unit.
“The focus of the standdown will be to reassess our security posture and procedures, validate the need to know for each person’s access, and emphasize to all Airmen and Guardians the responsibility we are entrusted with to safeguard this information and to enforce and improve our security requirements,” said the Air Force statement.
According to Dave Grohl, Melvins is the “heaviest band of all time.”
In an Instagram post, Melvins shared a video celebrating the band’s 40th anniversary featuring a quote from the Foo Fighters frontman.
“Arguably one of the most influential artists of the past 40 years, the Melvins have still never relented from being the heaviest band of all time,” Grohl’s quote reads. “From the day I dropped the needle on their 1987 debut album Gluey Porch Treatments, I’ve been inspired by their signature, staggered feel, much like countless other bands who look up to them as the kings of the Northwest music scene.”
Melvins were a big influence on Nirvana, and not just musically. As the story goes, it was Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne who introduced Grohl to Kurt Cobain and Krist Novselic.
“Oh, and thank you for giving me Nirvana’s phone number,” Grohl says.
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Andrew Lester, the suspect in the shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, has been released from custody after posting a $200,000 bond, authorities said.
Lester surrendered at the Clay County Detention Center on Tuesday and was released a few hours later after posting bond, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said.
Lester, an 84-year-old white man, was charged with one count of felony assault in the first degree and one count of armed criminal action, also a felony, Clay County prosecuting attorney Zachary Thompson said during a press conference Monday evening.
Ralph Yarl was shot Thursday night by a homeowner in Kansas City, Missouri, after he accidentally went to the wrong address to pick up his siblings, police said on Sunday.
“He knowingly caused physical injury to [Yarl] by shooting him,” Thompson said, adding that the first count is a class A felony with a sentence of up to life in prison, while the second count is an unclassified felony and carries a range of punishment of 3-15 years in prison.
In his statement to police, Lester said he “had just laid down in bed when he heard the doorbell ring,” according to the probable cause statement.
Lester told police he picked up his gun, a .32 Smith & Wesson 1888 revolver, and went to the front door, which consists of an interior main door and exterior glass storm door, both of which were locked, the statement reads.
“Lester stated he opened the interior door, and saw a black male approximately 6 feet tall pulling on the exterior storm door handle. He stated he believed someone was attempting to break into the house, and shot twice within a few seconds of opening the door,” the statement reads.
Lester told police he had never seen the man before and that “no words were exchanged during the incident and the male had not said anything prior to pulling on the door handle,” according to the probable cause statement.
The suspect told police “it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he was ‘scared to death’ due to the male’s size,” his own age, and his “inability to defend himself,” the statement reads.
Police conducted an informal cursory interview with Yarl at Children’s Mercy Hospital on Friday, according to the probable cause statement. Yarl told police he parked in the driveway, went to the front door, “pressed the doorbell and waited outside the front door,” the statement reads. Yarl told police the man inside “took a long time but finally opened the door holding a firearm,” and then “he was immediately shot in the head and fell to the ground,” according to the statement.
Yarl told police he got up and “ran away to keep from being shot,” and that the man allegedly said “don’t come around here,” according to the probable cause statement.
Yarl told police he went to multiple residences to ask for help and tell people to call the police, the statement reads.
Attorney Lee Merritt, who represents the Yarl family along with attorney Ben Crump, told ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis in an interview Monday that the family is “relieved” that charges have been filed.
“Because of the national outpouring, because of the community of Missouri that stood up, because of all the national organizers and people who have lent their voice — it seems that the prosecutors and law enforcement agencies on the ground are taking the case more seriously,” Merritt said.
The case garnered national attention over the weekend, and the White House confirmed to ABC News that President Joe Biden spoke with the Yarl family on Monday.
“This evening, the president spoke by phone to Ralph Yarl and shared his hope for a swift recovery,” the White House said Monday night.
“Ralph just got off the phone with the president of the United States today, who assured him that, you know, that he was and the rest of the nation was invested in justice for him,” Merritt told ABC News.
Ralph’s aunt Faith Spoonmore told ABC News Live Prime in an interview Monday before charges were announced that Ralph was shot in the head through a glass door and then in the arm and suffered a traumatic brain injury and an injury in his arm.
“He is healing. We are taking it one day at a time,” she said, adding that the shooting has also taken an emotional toll on the family.
The charges came after protests erupted in Kansas City over the weekend after Lester, who was unidentified at the time, was taken into custody and then released pending an investigation by the Kansas City Police Department.
“We understand how frustrating this has been,” Thompson said. “But I can assure you that the criminal justice system is working and will continue to work. As with any serious case, we approached this one in an objective and impartial manner.”
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said during a press conference Sunday evening that after the shooting, the suspect was taken into police custody and placed on a 24-hour investigative hold but had since been released while police investigate and present evidence to the prosecutor’s office.
“After consulting with the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office, the homeowner was released pending further investigation due to the need to obtain a formal statement from the victim, forensic evidence and compile additional information for a case file to be presented,” Graves said on Sunday.
Police announced on Monday afternoon that they submitted the case to the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office; prosecutors announced the charges two hours later.
Crump and Merritt said in a statement released Monday evening that the family is “extremely relieved that criminal charges are finally moving forward.”
“‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’ We are relieved that charges are finally moving forward but are disappointed in the delay that necessitated national outcry for an obvious crime,” Merritt said in a statement. “We are cautiously optimistic about accountability and justice.”
Merritt said that Ralph was released from the hospital on Saturday and is in the care of his doctors at home. He said that the family now wants to “see this man held accountable to the full extent of the law.”
“Despite of everything, we are grateful that he is alive because considering what he went through, I don’t think the person who did this intended that he will be alive,” Spoonmore told ABC News. “… We are upset, we are angry, but we also understand that it could have been much worse.”
ABC News’ Matt Foster, Justin Gomez and Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.
Motormouthed leading men Ryan Reynolds and Vince Vaughn are joining Jason Momoa and Aubrey Plaza for Animal Friends, a film Deadline is describing as an “R-rated road trip adventure.”
The trade says the project will combine animated characters with live-action ones, which sounds similar to Reynolds’ hit Detective Pokémon — except this time, it’s not for the kiddie set.
The plot is otherwise still a secret, Deadline says.
Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider, who previously worked with Reynolds on the 2020 game show Don’t, are writing, with Peter Atencio, who called the shots on Bert Kreischer‘s upcoming semi-autobiographical The Machine, directing, and Reynolds co-producing through his Maximum Effort company, with Legendary Pictures and Prime Focus Studios.
BTS’ Junkook is giving back. According to South Korean outlets, the singer donated $750,000 to the Seoul National University Children’s Hospital. His generous donation will help fund the medical expenses for kids who come from low-income households.
Meanwhile, his bandmate J-Hope showed off his new, shorter haircut on Instagram as he prepares to become the next member of BTS to begin his mandatory South Korean military service. Jin became the first member of the group to enlist back in December 2022.
A new film capturing the Waitress Broadway musical is making its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. Star and composer Sara Bareilles will be on hand to deliver a special performance following the world premiere of the film, Waitress, the Musical – Live on Broadway!
Adam Lambert and Jax are among the artists participating in an upcoming fundraiser to support drag performers amidst recent anti-LGBTQ legislation. The Drag Isn’t Dangerous telethon is set to take place Sunday, May 7, and will be broadcast live at moment.co/dangerous.
NOW That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 86, featuring hits from 16 major artists, including SZA, Metro Boomin and Pink, comes out May 5. NOW That’s What I Call Proud, featuring hits from LGBTQ artists including Lil Nas X, Sam Smith and Kim Petras, goes on sale the same day.
