“It’s something that we’ve always imagined,” guitarist James Valentine tells ABC Audio. “I think it’s the right time for us, because let’s face it, we’ve been around for 20 years. We’re getting kinda old.”
“We’ve spent 20 years on the road, so the thought of camping out somewhere for eight weeks sounds very appealing,” he continues. “Because I love what we do, but the only negative part of it is just the wear and tear that travel puts on your body, and your mind and your spirit.”
According to James, Maroon 5’s fans, friends and families are also happy about the residency.
“The fans, I’m hearing online, are very excited,” says James. “But I’ve also just been hearing from a lot of people in my life being like, ‘Hey, you’re going to Vegas, we’re coming out!’ And that’s why I think it’s so cool to to be able to play in a destination city like that … that’s easy for everyone to get to.”
And while performing in one venue will allow the band to do new and exciting things onstage, James admits that Adam Levine‘s dream of having him fly over the crowd may not be part of the equation.
“I think I was way more into that idea about 15 years ago,” he laughs. “I think as I get older, I just think about the potential injuries.”
As for Maroon 5’s downtime in Vegas, will they be spending time, and money, at the tables?
James laughs, “Well, Adam certainly loves to gamble, so we’ll see how that goes.”
March 23 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of ZZ Top’s eighth studio album, Eliminator, which went on to be the band’s most commercially successful album, peaking at nine on the Billboard Album chart.
The album, which used more synthesizers and drum machines than previous ZZ Top records, featured four hit singles: “Legs,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharped Dressed Man” and “TV Dinners.” “Gimme All Your Lovin’” peaked at two on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, with “Legs” and “Sharp Dressed Man” also making the top 10. “Gimme All Your Lovin’” also landed on the Billboard Top 40 chart.
The success of the album and the songs were helped by a series of hugely popular videos for “Legs,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’” and “Sharped Dressed Man.” They wound up in regular rotation on MTV, helping to attract a younger fan base.
All three featured a trio of models, along with a red 1933 Ford coupe, like the one that appeared on the cover of the album, with the video for “Legs” marking the debut of the band’s spinning guitars, covered in white sheepskin. “Legs” went on to earn ZZ Top an MTV Video Music Award for Best Group.
Eliminator was the first of the band’s albums to become a worldwide success and went on to sell over 11 million copies in the U.S. It has been certified Diamond by the RIAA.
And while ZZ Top lost member Dusty Hill in July 2021, they haven’t slowed down. They hit the road next month on a solo tour and will co-headline a tour this summer with Lynyrd Skynyrd, dubbed The Sharp Dressed Simple Man Tour. A complete list of tour dates can be found at zztop.com.
Mean Girls actress Lindsay Lohan, is among eight celebrities charged with cryptocurrency violations by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Lohan and the other celebrities were charged in connection with a broader investigation of crypto asset entrepreneur Justin Sun and three of his companies — Tron Foundation Limited, BitTorrent Foundation Ltd. and Rainberry Inc. — for the unregistered offer and sale of crypto asset securities, as well as spearheading a scheme to pay celebrities to tout such assets without disclosing their compensation.
In addition to Lohan, The SEC announced charges against Soulja Boy, Austin Mahone, Lil Yachty, Akon, Ne-Yo and Kendra Lust for “illegally touting TRX and/or BTT without disclosing that they were compensated for doing so and the amount of their compensation,” according to the SEC.
With the exception of Soulja Boy and Mahone — the celebrities have settled with a collective of more than $400,000 without admittance or denial of wrongdoing, the SEC added.
A representative for Lohan said in a statement obtained by Variety that the actor was unaware of any disclosure obligations, adding, “Lindsay was contacted in March 2022 and was unaware of the disclosure requirement. She agreed to pay a fine to resolve the matter.”
(DENVER) — A student who was under a “certain agreement to be patted down each day” at school allegedly shot and wounded two school administrators at East High School in Denver, authorities said.
The suspect, Austin Lyle, 17, fled the school on Wednesday morning after the shooting, Denver police said. His body was later discovered, officials said.
Police searching for the suspect had located his car in Park County, which is located southwest of Denver, officials said Wednesday evening. A male body was found near the vehicle, Park County Sheriff Tom McGraw later said during a press conference. The scene was being processed and the coroner was en route to the scene, McGraw said.
The Park County Coroner’s Office later confirmed that the body was Lyle’s.
The handgun used in the shooting has not been recovered as of Wednesday. Police had warned the public to not approach Lyle, calling him armed and dangerous. They said that Lyle, who had been wanted for attempted homicide, may have been be driving a 2005 red Volvo XC90 with Colorado license plate BSCW10.
The faculty members were both hospitalized following the shooting. They have been identified by the school district as Eric Sinclair, who remains in serious condition, and Jerald Mason, who was upgraded from serious to good condition. Mason has since been released from the hospital, Denver Health said.
The suspected shooter was required to be searched at the beginning of each school day, officials said. He allegedly shot the school administrators as they patted him down Wednesday morning in the school’s office area, which officials said is away from other students and staff.
The suspect’s daily searches were part of a “safety plan” that was a result of “previous behavior,” officials said, though they did not elaborate on the previous behavior.
East High School was placed on lockdown in the wake of the shooting. Denver Public Schools later said it received clearance to start releasing students.
Last month, East High School students went to a city council meeting to call for action on school safety and gun violence after a 16-year-old student was fatally shot near the school, according to ABC Denver affiliate KMGH-TV.
The superintendent said Wednesday that the school will be closed for the rest of this week, and that the building will now have two armed officers present through the end of the school year.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock in a statement said removing school resource officers was a “mistake” and said they should be quickly returned.
“We all have to step up as a community and be a part of the solution,” he said.
Hancock also called on Congress to pass “common sense” gun legislation.
“Parents are angry and frustrated, and they have a right to be,” he said. “Easy access to guns must be addressed in our country — Denver cannot do this alone.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday that the administration’s “hearts go out to the families of the two school administrators and in Denver today and to the entire school community.”
Jean-Pierre noted that President Joe Biden unveiled another executive action aimed at tackling gun violence last week but that “as the president said in the State of the Union, Congress needs to do something.”
This shooting comes two years to the day after a mass shooting at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, that claimed 10 lives.
(WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J.) — Monmouth University lifted a shelter-in-place order after an investigation into a “possible armed subject” found that a curling iron “was mistaken for a weapon,” a university official said.
Police at Monmouth, in West Long Branch, New Jersey, had received a report at 9:15 p.m. Wednesday of a “possible armed subject” on campus, the school said in an alert posted to its website.
Multiple local and county law enforcement agencies searched and secured the campus, the university said.
“Detectives were able to utilize video footage and other technology based on the description provided and identified a person of interest, a currently enrolled student,” Patrick F. Leahy, the president, said in a letter posted early Thursday.
He added, “Based on interviews with that person, law enforcement personnel were able to determine that the person was in possession of a curling iron that was mistaken for a weapon.”
The university issued an all-clear notification a short time later.
“All clear-the shelter in place on campus has been lifted, the campus is safe, an elevated police presence remains,” school officials said on Twitter early Thursday. “Additional information will be sent via email.”
All classes before noon on Thursday have been canceled, the school said.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL SPRING TRAINING
INTERLEAGUE
Washington 5, NY Yankees 2
Tampa Bay 6, Philadelphia 2
Houston 5, NY Mets 2
Atlanta 5, Detroit 3
San Francisco 4, Texas 0
Chi Cubs 4, Oakland 2
LA Angels 10, Colorado 9
Seattle 5, LA Dodgers 1
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Toronto 2, Baltimore 1
Texas 2, Chi White Sox 0
Kansas City 4, Chi White Sox 3
Minnesota 11, Boston 0
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati 4, San Diego 1
St. Louis 0, Miami 0 (Tie)
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Denver 118, Washington 104
Indiana 118, Toronto 114
Miami 127, New York 120
Golden State 127, Dallas 125
Milwaukee 130, San Antonio 94
Memphis 130, Houston 125
Philadelphia 116, Chicago 91
Minnesota 125, Atlanta 124
Portland 127, Utah 115
LA Lakers 122, Phoenix 111
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Edmonton 4, Arizona 3 (OT)
Pittsburgh 5, Colorado 2
Saliva guitarist Wayne Swinny has died. According to TMZ, he was 59.
The news comes shortly after the “Click Click Boom” rockers announced earlier Wednesday that Swinny had been hospitalized Tuesday with a brain hemorrhage. In a follow-up statement Wednesday evening, Saliva shared, “It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our brother Wayne Swinny.”
“Wayne passed away this afternoon from a Spontaneous brain hemorrhage while we were out on tour,” the post reads. “Details for the funeral arrangements will be announced shortly. Wayne will be missed by all those who knew him. We love you Wayne.”
Swinny is a co-founder of Saliva, and was the only original member in the band’s current lineup. The group’s 2001 album, Every Six Seconds, is certified Platinum by the RIAA and spawned the singles “Click Click Boom,” “Your Disease” and “After Me.”
Saliva released their latest album, 10 Lives, in 2018. They put out three singles in 2022, including “High on Me,” which is currently charting on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.
(NEW YORK) — Death rates from COVID-19 varied dramatically across the United States, a major new analysis finds.
The report, published Monday in medical journal The Lancet, looked at the rate of deaths throughout the country between January 2020 and July 2022.
COVID death rates in states like Arizona and New Mexico were roughly four times higher than in states like Hawaii, New Hampshire and Maine, researchers found.
The highest COVID-19 death rates were seen in Arizona with 581 deaths per 100,000 and Washington D.C. with 526 deaths per 100,000.
By comparison, the lowest rates of death were seen in Hawaii with 147 deaths per 100,000, New Hampshire with 215 deaths per 100,000 and Maine with 218 deaths per 100,000.
The authors of the study noted that Arizona’s high death rate from COVID-19 deaths may be due to “inequality, some poverty…ultimately [low] vaccination rates and behaviors didn’t line up to have good outcomes.”
States that did well, like Hawaii, New Hampshire and Washington state, are states — in most cases — “[that] have done a good job restricting travel, and in some cases have less poverty, less inequality, and relatively high vaccination rates.”
Additionally, states with larger proportions of people who identified as Black or Hispanic witnessed higher death rates.
Lower rates of infection and death from COVID-19 were seen in states with higher education levels, lower poverty levels and higher rates of self-reported trust in the federal government and in the scientific community.
“Nearly every state, from the 26 worst performing states in the pandemic, fall into one of the three…[either] disproportionately high population of people identifying as Hispanic…higher than the national average identifying as black…or high levels of support for the 2020 republican presidential candidate,” said lead author Tom Bollyky, a senior fellow for global health, economics, and development at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of law at Georgetown University, in a video commentary.
The authors further discussed parts of the study highlighting racial, economic and social inequities in the U.S. that led to differences in rates of infection and death rates between states.
States with higher poverty rates of poverty had higher death rates. For every 2.6% increase in poverty rates above the national average within a state, there was a 23.3% increase in the cumulative death rate, reflecting a significant economic healthcare disparity.
“The COVID-19 pandemic clearly exacerbated fundamental social and economic inequities, but science-based interventions and policy changes provided clear impact on mortality rates at the state level,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
Policies adopted by states during the pandemic, including mask mandates, social distancing and vaccine mandates, were associated with lower COVID-19 infection rates and higher vaccination rates were associated with lower death rates.
“We can invest in programs that protect the communities that we see disproportionately affected by the pandemic,” said co-lead author Emma Castro, a researcher at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, in the video commentary. “We can invest in programs such as paid family and sick leaves, expanded health insurance and expanded Medicaid.”
(WASHINGTON) — A Supreme Court debate Wednesday over parody and popular commercial brands was dominated by talk of whiskey bottles, dog toys, pornography and poop.
For nearly two hours, in an argument punctuated by laughter, the justices wrestled with the intersection of freedom of speech and protection for trademarks in a case pitting a humorous dog toy maker against American whiskey producer Jack Daniel’s.
The case, Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc., v. VIP Products, centers on a chew toy that resembles a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey but is spoofed as “Bad Spaniels” with the suggestion that its contents are pet waste.
“This case involves a dog toy that copies Jack Daniel’s trademark and trade dress and associates its whiskey with dog poop,” the whiskey maker’s attorney Lisa Blatt told the court on Wednesday.
The liquor company claims the toy’s design causes confusion and dilutes the quality of its brand. VIP Products insists the spoof is obvious and protected by the First Amendment.
“They’re complaining about the speech, the parody, the comparison to dog poop and a Bad Spaniel, not the mark,” VIP Products attorney Bennett Cooper said Wednesday. “Parodies on noncompetitive goods like Bad Spaniels aren’t likely to cause confusion.”
A district court sided with Jack Daniel’s but an appeals court reversed, upholding the toy. The justices considered what legal test should decide when a trademark has been infringed and whether VIP Products’ toy had done so.
“Could any reasonable person think that Jack Daniel’s had approved this use of the mark?” Justice Samuel Alito asked Blatt, representing the whiskey maker.
“Absolutely,” Blatt replied. “That’s why we won [in the district court].”
“I’m concerned about the First Amendment implications of your position,” Alito said.
Blatt, backed by dozens of U.S. brands like American Apparel, Campbell Soup Company and Nike, warned that allowing imitations like “Bad Spaniels” would open the floodgates to harmful trademark infringement — under the justification of “parody” — including in pornography.
Blatt told the justices that trademark owners could be victims of “something that approaches compelled speech if their mark has been used in porn films and porn toys and sex toys, and people are profiting off of that.”
She raised the ’70s pornographic film “Debbie Does Dallas,” which an appeals court in a separate case found had infringed the trademark of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
Meanwhile, VIP Products argued that a dog toy is a “noncommercial” form of protected speech — a distinctive parody, said Cooper, one of their attorneys, because it does not explicitly say “Jack Daniel’s.”
“There’s no doubt that Jack Daniel’s takes itself very seriously,” Cooper quipped.
Some on the court did not appear convinced.
“Maybe I just have no sense of humor — but what’s the parody?” asked Justice Elena Kagan. She went on to suggest the chew toy is just an “ordinary commercial product” profiting from the likeness of a whiskey brand.
“You make fun of a lot of marks: Doggie Walker, Dos Perros, Smella R Paw, Canine Cola, Mountain Drool. Are all of these companies taking themselves too seriously?” she asked dryly.
Chief Justice John Roberts guided the morning’s arguments but did not ask any questions himself. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett did not speak at all throughout the proceedings.
There was no apparent consensus among the justices on which company should prevail or whether the matter should be sent back to a lower court for further consideration.
The court is expected to release a decision by the end of June.
(CHARLESTON, W.Va.) — The Department of Justice announced Wednesday it made the largest methamphetamine bust in West Virginia history.
The DOJ charged 30 people with allegedly distributing more than 200 pounds of meth, alongside guns and other drugs, over a period of seven months, dubbing the operation “Operation Smoke and Mirrors.”
“The takedown of this drug trafficking organization stopped a record amount of methamphetamine, as well as other dangerous drugs, from reaching our communities and causing harm,” United States Attorney Will Thompson said in a statement.
According to the DOJ, the individuals were also charged with distributing large amounts of cocaine and fentanyl in Charleston.
Officials seized 28 pounds of cocaine, 20 pounds of fentanyl, 18 guns and $747,000 in cash during the operation, the Justice Department said.
“This investigation demonstrates that we will use all of our resources, including new and innovative investigative techniques, against those who target our communities with this poison,” Thompson said.
The announcement comes on the same day that the Department of Homeland Security disclosed it seized 900 pounds of fentanyl in its first week as part of its fentanyl-targeting operation called “Operation Blue Lotus.”
According to DHS, the operation has led to 18 seizures, 16 federal arrests, and two state arrests. Those seizures prevented over 900 pounds of fentanyl, 700 pounds of methamphetamine and 100 pounds of cocaine from entering the United States.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meth killed over 32,000 Americans in 2021.
