Måneskin will be trading trick-or-treating for “Beggin'” this Halloween.
The Italian rockers will launch their first U.S. headlining tour Monday in Seattle. While their onstage getup is usually pretty theatrical and elaborate anyway, frontman Damiano David tells ABC Audio the band will be recognizing the spirit of October 31.
“Yeah, for sure we’re gonna dress up,” David says.
The U.S. tour comes over a year after Måneskin broke out in 2021 thanks to winning the Eurovision Song Contest and their viral cover of The Four Seasons‘ “Beggin’.” In the U.S., they’ve mostly played festivals and TV specials — which, in the case of the MTV VMAs, didn’t allow viewers to see much — so a full tour of indoor venues will be something new for both stateside audiences and the band members themselves.
“It’s gonna be surprising for sure, ’cause we don’t even know what we’re gonna do,” David teases.
Guitarist Thomas Raggi adds, “We’re building something crazy for sure.”
Måneskin’s tour is scheduled to conclude December 16 in Las Vegas.
Robin Sylvester, longtime bassist of Grateful Dead singer/guitarist Bob Weir‘s side group RatDog, died Saturday.
Sylvester’s passing was first announced by ex-RatDog guitarist Mark Karan on his Facebook page and later confirmed by Jambands.com and Relix.
“I can’t believe what I just heard. Our dear, sweet Robin Sylvester has passed & left us all with a big ol’ hole in our hearts,” Karan wrote. “I’m speechless & gutted.”
No cause of death has been announced, although Sylvester had experienced some serious health issues over the last decade or so, and in 2012, it was announced that he needed a kidney transplant.
The London-born Sylvester joined RatDog in 2003 after founding bassist Rob Wasserman exited the band, and continued to play with the group until they became inactive around 2014.
Robin, who was a multi-instrumentalist, started his professional music career during the 1960s with the a cappella chorus the London Boy Singers. During the early 1970s, he played keyboards with the psychedelic band Byzantium.
Sylvester relocated to the U.S. in the mid-1970s, and for a time was a member of a folk-rock band called The Movies that Clive Davis signed to Arista Records.
He also worked with a variety of well-known artists as a session and/or touring musician, including founding Jefferson Airplane singer Marty Balin, Mary Wells, The Shirelles, The Drifters, Billy Preston, Christine McVie, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Freddy Fender and Del Shannon.
In the late 1990s, Sylvester was among the musicians who took part in ex-Grateful Dead keyboardist Vince Welnick‘s Missing Man Formation project.
Netflix’s The Witcher is going to look a little different come season four, with the streamer announcing that Liam Hemsworth will be taking over Henry Cavill‘s titular role as Geralt of Rivia.
Taking to Instagram, Cavill, 39, who’s led the series for three seasons, announced, “Some news to share from The Continent.”
“My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4,” he wrote, along with an image of the series’ signature sigil. “In my stead, the fantastic Mr Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf. As with the greatest of literary characters, I pass the torch with reverence for the time spent embodying Geralt and enthusiasm to see Liam’s take on this most fascinating and nuanced of men.”
“Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving in and seeing what you can find,” Cavil concluded.
Sharing the same image, Hemsworth, 32, wrote in part that he was “over the moon about the opportunity to play Geralt of Rivia. Henry Cavill has been an incredible Geralt, and I’m honoured that he’s handing me the reins and allowing me to take up the White Wolf’s blades for the next chapter of his adventure.”
Cavill didn’t share why he’s stepping away from the role, but he announced a week ago that he’s returning to the role of Superman on the big screen, after last playing him in 2017’s Justice League.
The Witcher season three is expected to hit Netflix in summer 2023.
(NEW YORK) — Opening statements are set for Monday morning in the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump’s namesake family real estate business, which has been charged by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with orchestrating a 15-year scheme to help certain executives evade taxes.
The trial gets underway as Trump lays the groundwork for a possible presidential run and campaigns for candidates running in the midterm elections little more than a week away.
Though Trump himself is not charged and is not expected to testify, his name is expected to be frequently mentioned. He signed certain checks that will be presented as evidence and witnesses will testify about conversations with him.
A jury of eight men and four women agreed to put aside any personal opinions about Trump or his company and consider the evidence presented during a trial in state court that could last into December.
The Trump Organization compensated certain executives with off-the-books perks – rent, utilities and garage expenses at a luxury apartment building, private school tuition, leases for luxury cars – that were never accounted for on taxes, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
The company has pleaded not guilty.
Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime former chief financial officer, has pleaded guilty and agreed to testify as part of a deal that includes five months in jail. Prosecutors believe Weisselberg’s guilty plea implicates the company because he was an executive entrusted to act on its behalf.
Weisselberg pleaded guilty to all 15 counts he faced, including conspiracy, criminal tax fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records. Weisselberg said he skirted taxes on nearly $2 million in income, including fringe benefits like rent, luxury cars and private school tuition for his grandchildren.
The indictment said that, beginning in 2005, Weisselberg used the corporation’s bank account to pay the rent for his apartment, and he and others paid his utility bills using the corporation’s account. The indictment also accused Weisselberg of concealing “indirect compensation” by using payments from the Trump Organization to cover nearly $360,000 in upscale private school payments for his family, and nearly $200,000 in luxury car leases.
“Weisselberg intentionally caused the indirect compensation payments to be omitted from his personal tax returns, despite knowing that those payments represented taxable income and were treated as compensation by the Trump Corporation in internal records,” the indictment said.
A corporate tax fraud case was not what prosecutors were after. When they first filed charges against Weisselberg last summer, prosecutors hoped he would turn on Trump, sources have told ABC News, as part of a larger criminal investigation into the former president’s business practices that remains ongoing.
A corporate defendant cannot serve prison time. A conviction could require the Trump Organization to pay a maximum $10,000 fine on each count and, potentially, the taxes allegedly skirted.
More significant are the potential collateral consequences of a conviction. Certain contracts could go away if a counterparty has rules against doing business with felons; banks could consider calling in loans or exiting altogether their relationship with the Trump Organization.
Trump faces a half-dozen investigations into his business practices, January 6, efforts to overturn the Georgia vote and the removal of documents with classification markings from the White House.
Compared to some pop stars, Jason Mraz doesn’t have a particularly outrageous look. But apparently it’s still distinctive enough to inspire many fans to dress themselves — and their kids, their dogs and their cats — like him for Halloween.
“Oh, yeah. Anything in a Fedora qualifies as me,” laughs the hat-wearing singer. “I mean, I’ve seen inanimate objects, pets, babies — you name it. I love it.”
But as for his own costumes, Jason admits he’s not very good at them.
“I never had the foresight to, like, organize an outfit. So I’m the last-minute Halloween outfit guy: I’m putting this and that together and then making something up at the last minute,” he explains.
Then again, Halloween wasn’t that much fun for him as a kid, because his family was always celebrating his sister’s birthday, which is also October 31. Jason says the thrill of Halloween was “absolutely” taken away for him because of that, but he’s the odd man out in the Mraz family.
“My whole family, they go all out [on Halloween],” he says. “I mean, I might grow a pumpkin or a gourd in the garden and that’s the extent of my Halloween festivities. I think because my life is in entertainment, I seldom entertain at home.”
Black Adam topped the box office for a second straight week, delivering an estimated $27.7 million for a two-week domestic gross of $111 million. Add that to the superhero film’s international numbers, and its worldwide tally is up to $250 million.
The romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise hung on to second place with an estimated $10 million, bringing its two-week North American total to $33.7 million.
This weekend’s new entry, the horror flick Prey for the Devil, settled for a third-place debut, scaring up an estimated $7 million.
Smile continued an impressive box office run, posting an estimated $5 million and raising its five-week domestic tally to $92.4 million.
The news wasn’t as good for Halloween Ends, which rounded out the top five an estimated $3.8 million. That brings its three-week domestic gross to just $60.3 million. Globally, the horror film has grabbed $94.7 million.
Disney+ is adding Encanto at the Hollywood Bowl to its platform on December 28. The original special will begin with a special introduction by co-creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, as well as the animated film’s original voice cast, which will reunite at the Hollywood Bowl to perform songs from the film. The stage will be transformed to look like the Madrigal home known as “Casita,” for this show-stopping concert event. Disney is the parent company of ABC News…
Actress Shelley Duvall, best know for her work with filmmakers like Robert Altman, Woody Allen and Stanley Kubrick on movies including Nashville, Annie Hall and The Shining, is set to make her first big-screen appearance in 20 years in The Forest Hills, according to Deadline. The horror-thriller, per the outlet, follows “a disturbed man who is tormented by nightmarish visions, after enduring head trauma while camping in the Catskill Mountains.” Duvall will reportedly play the mother of the mentally and emotionally disturbed Rico, played by Chiko Mendez, who serves as his inner voice. Duvall announced her retirement from acting in 2002, later resurfacing on Dr. Phil, where she opened up about battling mental illness…
Variety reports Jeff Goldblum is in final talks to play the Wizard in Jon M. Chu’s two-part feature adaptation of Wicked, alongside Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. Wicked, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, tells the story of how Elphaba became the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch. The Wicked movies are set for release on Christmas in 2024 and 2025…
CBS’ The Real Love Boat is setting sail for the company’s streaming service, Paramount+, according to Deadline. It’s the latest CBS show to move to the streamer, joining SEAL Team and Evil, which made the move last year. The reality dating competition series, patterned after the hit 1970s scripted series that used Princess Cruises ships as its setting, “brings singles together to cruise the Mediterranean on a luxury cruise ship while looking for love,” according to CBS. “Destination dates, challenges and surprise singles…test the couples’ compatibility and chemistry.” The winning couple takes home a cash prize, plus a once-in-a-lifetime Princess Cruise…
(DELPHI, Ind.) — Indiana State Police and U.S. Marshals officials are headed to Delphi, Indiana, on Monday to join local investigators as they announce an update in a mysterious double murder that’s gone unsolved for more than five years.
Best friends Libby German, 14, and Abby Williams, 13, were on a hiking trail in rural Delphi when they were killed in the middle of the day on Feb. 13, 2017.
The shocking slayings cast fear across the small Indiana town and garnered national intrigue.
No arrests have ever been made and police have never revealed how the girls were killed.
Monday’s press conference is set for 10 a.m.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Oct 31, 5:57 AM EDT
The video, recording and sketch
In 2017, authorities released a grainy image of the suspect, who they say was on the trail the day the girls went missing. In 2019, police released a brief video clip — footage taken from Libby’s phone — showing a grainy image of the suspect walking on the bridge near where the girls were last seen.
Police also publicized the suspect’s voice — a recording of him saying “guys … down the hill” — which was recovered from Libby’s phone.
Authorities in 2019 released a new suspect sketch that officials said was based on a witness’ recollection of what he or she saw.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — South Korea’s national police apologized on Monday, saying they’d only deployed 137 officers to handle a crowd of about 100,000 revellers who were celebrating Halloween in Itaewon, the Seoul neighborhood where at least 154 people were killed in a crowd crush.
“It was foreseen that a large number of people would gather there. But we didn’t expect that large scale casualties would occur due to the gathering of many people,” Hong Ki-hyun, chief of the National Police Agency’s Public Order Management Bureau, said on Monday.
The crush began on Saturday night, as crowds moved through Itaewon’s narrow alleys. One middle schooler and five high school students were among the 154 victims killed, the Education Ministry said on Monday. At least 19 foreigners were among the dead, including two Americans, officials said.
Witnesses said Itaewon’s streets were so densely clogged that it was practically impossible for emergency workers and ambulances to reach the alley near the site.
Police on Sunday said about 200 officers had been in the neighborhood, but revised that figure on Monday amid growing criticism over whether officials could have prevented the incident.
Hong said police don’t have manuals for large crowd gathering situations without a clear organizer.
Lines of citizens, and politicians, are gathering in three different locations to pay their respects on Monday. Official memorial altars were set up in two locations — one near the incident site in Itaewon, and the other in the center of Seoul in front of the City Hall.
Many more also coming to the scene to lay flowers, notes and soju.
“This is all adults’ fault, we could have prevented this if prepared right,” Lee Sung-ho, 61, told ABC News in tears.
“I couldn’t sleep so I had to do something,” he said, placing a white chrysanthemum and a letter he wrote overnight.
“I wanted to see the shirine and thought it would be important that I be here to pay respect,” high school senior Luca Ignat, 18 years old, told ABC News.
Ignat said he was at the scene minutes after the crowd crush.
“Lot of people were still partying and laughing. Then I saw bodies, police came. Officers were screaming. Then I checked the phone, then I knew what I was seeing was real,” he said. “It made me angry.”
(NEW YORK) — Heading into the midterm cycle’s home stretch, Republicans are working to paint Democrats in key races as soft on crime — as polls show the issue is of high importance for voters.
The familiar political tactic, backed by a flood of advertising in races from coast to coast, seems to be paying dividends for the GOP given diminishing Democratic polling leads in key contests in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where their Senate candidates had once led by 10 and 5 points, respectively, according to FiveThirtyEight polling averages.
But even elsewhere, from blue states like Oregon to red states like Texas, Republicans are seizing on concerns over crime rates as a partner to stubbornly high inflation and continued immigration at the southern border, hoping to put Democrats on their back foot.
“Crime is clearly climbing up the list as a top issue, and it’s coinciding with the Republicans’ focus on it,” said GOP strategist Scott Jennings, matching ABC News surveys showing Republicans with an edge on the issue. “And I guess it wouldn’t matter so much if the issue was a low-wattage issue. But the truth is, it’s probably one of the top three issues in most races, certainly, in the country.”
One Democratic pollster conceded the power of the issue, telling ABC News that Democrats “have bad branding on crime as a party.”
“I think Democrats can’t be mealy mouthed about it. I think they have to fully refute the attack.”
Some major crime grew
Killings increased during COVID-19, according to the Council on Criminal Justice, but the trend is reversing slightly in some areas: An ABC News/Gun Violence Archives analysis of the nation’s 50 largest cities showed that homicides were down nearly 5% from last year after two years of pandemic-era increases.
“Crime is a very visceral thing, just like inflation,” said Jennings, the GOP operative. “It’s easy to understand.”
With two exceptions since 1989, people polled by Gallup have more often said there is more crime in the U.S. and not less, though data collected by the government largely shows that violent crime rates have dropped sharply from the early 1990s. (Conversely, those Gallup respondents have been more evenly split on whether they feel there is more or less crime in their local areas and mostly said they wouldn’t feel afraid to walk alone at night in their neighborhood.)
Leah Wright Rigueur, a history professor at Brandeis University and ABC News political contributor, explained in an October ABC News interview that messaging around crime can be reductive. “Who’s going to sit down and say, ‘I’m pro-crime?’ Nobody.”
“Here’s the thing about using crime as a political talking point: You don’t actually want to go through the nuances of crime,” Rigueur said then, for a story about public safety in Ohio.
Gallup’s polls through the years also show most people saying they worry a fair amount or a great deal about crime and violence.
“You can run a three-prong campaign: inflation, crime, immigration; inflation, crime, immigration; inflation, crime, immigration, repeat after me, rinse repeat, whatever,” Jennings said.
Democrats in several races have distanced themselves from the “defund the police mantra” popular among some of the Democrats’ far-left flank, but GOP attacks over police reform and crime in urban centers is still blanketing the airwaves in Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and elsewhere.
But nowhere, perhaps, have they been as prominent and potent as in the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Senate races.
A closer look at Barnes and Fetterman in the midterms
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate nominee, has faced an avalanche of ads underscoring his service on the state Board of Pardons and suggesting he was intent on releasing felons from prison.
Republican rival Mehmet Oz’s campaign labeled him “the most pro-murderer candidate in America.”
Fetterman, who bears tattoos in memory of crime victims from the town where he was previously mayor, has argued that when he was on the board and advocated for a felon to be released, it involved offenders who spent many decades behind bars and were no longer dangerous.
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, his state’s Democratic Senate nominee, has also been facing a wave of ads unearthing past comments on law enforcement budgets and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to contend that he supports the “defund the police” movement, which he disputes.
That post-Labor Day barrage coincided with a changing tide in each race, with the FiveThirtyEight polling averages now showing Fetterman’s edge over Oz narrowing considerably and Barnes falling behind Republican Sen. Ron Johnson after an earlier lead.
And while it’s impossible to definitively connect the ads to polling shifts, members of both parties say the GOP strategy, which echoes successful tactics in past cycles, is working.
“I think it is interwoven in almost every ad that I’ve seen,” said Pennsylvania GOP consultant Josh Novotney. “I think they will continue to be used, and my guess is they are going to be pretty effective.”
“No doubt, they’re hard-hitting,” Tom Nelson, the Outagamie County executive who challenged Barnes in the Senate primary, told ABC News, adding, “The severity is much more than people were expecting, perhaps.”
That puts Democrats in a familiar spot: scrambling to assert they’re not soft on crime while not alienating their base — which in recent years has become more clamorous for law enforcement reforms and conversations about police misconduct and inequalities in the justice system, while ABC News polling has shown defunding proposals are unpopular with the public.
Republicans for decades, going back to George H. W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign, have sought to paint Democrats as eager to coddle felons, an attack Democrats have said is unfair and untrue. Yet, race experts acknowledge, if Democrats run as too strong of allies to police departments, they risk backlash from their most loyal voters, but if they do not respond strongly enough, they lose ground with moderates.
Continued remarks by some of the most progressive lawmakers advocating for shifting funds away from police could also distract from President Joe Biden’s repeated calls to “fund the police” as well as money in last year’s stimulus package that states could direct money to local law enforcement — and fuel the perpetuation of defund the police attack ads targeting Democrats across the U.S.
“It is unhelpful that there are enough voices within the party, whether they are elected or just visible people on our side of the aisle out there talking about defunding the police, insinuating that it’s a larger party platform,” the Democratic pollster lamented.
Fetterman and Barnes have both sought to blunt the impact of the GOP criticism.
Fetterman has insisted he believes in strong sentences for violent felons but supports efforts to free those wrongfully convicted or those convicted of nonviolent offenses. He also removed “Black Lives Matter” language from his website, a move credited to a website update and expansion. He also said in one ad he worked “side by side with the police” as mayor of Braddock, and another clip featured a defense the sheriff of Montgomery County, saying Fetterman “gave a second chance to those who deserve it.”
At one recent campaign stop, Fetterman emphasized that two of the things he’s most proud of in his tenure were “stopping the gun violence as a mayor and fighting for the innocent and other individuals for a second chance.”
“Dr. Oz lives in a mansion on a hill, what does he know about confronting crime? John Fetterman has actually done it, and done it successfully. So he’s not going to be taking pointers from a guy who just moved here and has absolutely no understanding of the problems facing Pennsylvania,” Fetterman campaign spokesperson Joe Calvello said in a statement.
Barnes, meanwhile, has insisted he does not support defunding the police and cast the ads targeting him as misleading.
There have been some signs that voters haven’t rejected them on the public safety issue.
A Monmouth University poll released early this month showed Fetterman with a 5-point lead — and that surveyed voters trusted him on crime more than Oz by a 45-38 margin. And while Barnes’s polling lead is gone, he’s still within statistical striking distance of Johnson.
Pennsylvania Democratic ad maker J.J. Balaban said Fetterman had done a “credible job in pushing back,” noting a recent ad with a sheriff. And Barnes has started attacking Johnson in ads over comments seeking to minimize the violence of last year’s Capitol riot.
“If they’re gonna go after Mandela on crime, the Democrats should be going in on Johnson being the cheerleader for the greatest crime against American democracy in our 246-year history, that being the insurrection,” said Wisconsin Democratic strategist Scot Ross.
“Ron Johnson is more vulnerable on crime than Mandela Barnes is, and Democratic allies need to get that on television. And they needed to get it on television a month ago,” Ross said.
Barnes campaign spokesperson Maddy McDaniel hinted at an offensive in a statement, noting the race “remains neck and neck” and that Barnes is “armed with one of the largest third quarter fundraising hauls of any candidate this cycle,” referencing his $20.1 million haul from July-September.
After Johnson argued during their first debate that Barnes “has a record of wanting to defund the police,” noting past support for police reform, Barnes went on to challenge Johnson’s own history, telling MSNBC: “I won’t be lectured about crime from somebody who supported a violent insurrection that left 140 officers injured,” citing Johnson’s comments over the attack and reports that an aide sought to hand then-Vice President Mike Pence a list of alternate electors.
And Barnes’ campaign did put out an ad highlighting the insurrection — but only on digital platforms. (Of Barnes’ criticism, Johnson campaign spokesman Mike Marinella told ABC News in a previous statement, in part: “Barnes can’t defend his failed record … No wonder he is constantly trying to change the topic.”)
Republican attacks ads saying Democrats want to “defund the police” are airing in key battleground states.
“Simple, easy to understand things are what sticks in most voters’ minds. And so, when you hear something like ‘defund the police,’ that is something that the Democrats don’t want to make their races about, but it’s certainly out there in the common nomenclature for voters,” said GOP pollster Robert Blizzard.
“If crime rates are going up, crime stories dominate local television. So, they have an outsized impact on voters’ attitudes. The local news does not lead with the price of gas but does lead with the homicide in your city,” said GOP strategist Alex Conant.
With a 50-50 Senate, nothing less than control of the upper chamber is at stake.
“I’ve known these guys for 17 or 18 years. I know that their heart is in it. I know they’re as resolved as anybody else. And I think the closer you get to Election Day, the more and more real it really feels, and I think that’s happening,” Nelson, the Wisconsin Democrat, said. “At least, I hope it is.”
ABC News’ Will McDuffie and Paulina Tam contributed to this report.
