(NEW YORK) — One of the winning tickets to Friday’s Mega Millions jackpot was sold in Fort Myers, Florida, weeks after Hurricane Ian devastated the area.
Ticket holders in California and Florida matched all six numbers on Friday night, winning $494 million on Friday, lottery officials said in a news release.
Friday’s jackpot was the 11th largest in the game’s history, according to the game’s officials.
The winning ticket in Fort Myers comes at a critical time for the Florida city.
Last month, Hurricane Ian struck Florida’s west coast as a Category 4 hurricane, destroying homes and businesses with winds that topped 150 mph, particularly in Lee County, Florida, where Fort Myers is located.
At least 127 people in the state have died due to Hurricane Ian, local officials said.
As for the winning ticket, it’s the first Mega Millions jackpot win since two people won the $1.337 billion prize in Illinois on July 29, officials said.
The winning numbers were 9, 22, 26, 41 and 44, plus the gold Mega Ball 19.
Jimmie Allen’s spent a fair bit of time on the small screen in recent years and he’s not done with TV work yet — the country star announced this week that he’s going to be a guest star on an episode of ABC sitcom The Conners.
“This is gonna be a good time!! Learning my lines as I type,” Jimmie wrote on Twitter when he shared the news.
In addition to his musical projects, Jimmie has been expanding his reach in all directions lately. Not only has he appeared on American Idol, The Voice and as the co-host of the ACM Awards, he’s also been busy behind the scenes, serving as the executive music producer of Netflix series Titletown High last year.
As if that weren’t enough, Jimmie hosted a Professional Bowlers Association Challenge tournament with amateur and pro bowlers earlier this month. He’s an avid bowler who has said he hopes to join the PBA in 2023.
The Conners is a sequel to classic TV sitcom Roseanne. It’s currently in its fifth season.
Todd Rundgren‘s long-delayed studio album Space Force, which features collaborations with a wide variety of artists, finally got its release Friday, October 14.
The 12-track collection includes contributions from Cheap Trick‘s Rick Nielsen, Steve Vai, Thomas Dolby, Crowded House‘s Neil Finn, ex-King Crimson singer/guitarist Adrian Belew, Weezer‘s Rivers Cuomo, Sparks and The Roots.
Space Force is a follow-up to Rundgren’s similarly collaborative 2017 album, White Knight, and he tells ABC Audio that new record differs from its predecessor in that most of the new song ideas originated from the artists he worked with rather than himself.
“[With] Space Force … I was putting much more of the responsibility for the material on my collaborators,” he explains. “I wanted them to germinate … the process, to seed it by giving me something of theirs that they had worked on but perhaps never finished.”
Not surprisingly, the album features songs influenced by various musical genres, including hard rock, prog rock, R&B, ska, rap and electronica.
“[It’s] almost like an anthology of different artists who might have been popular at a certain time. Although the artists that are on my record have varying degrees of popularity in different eras,” Rundgren explains. “So the flavor of the record is eclectic.”
Since much of Space Force was put together during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rundgren generally created the tunes remotely with his collaborators.
Todd says the “typical process” of working on a track for the album would be “me getting someone to send me something — often they would send me more than one thing, so I would have an option — and then me … applying my sensibilities to it to bring it into the realm of … an actual song that can be released.
Here’s Space Force‘s full track list:
“Puzzle” — with Adrian Belew
“Down with the Ship” — with Rivers Cuomo
“Artist in Residence” — with Neil Finn
“Godiva Girl” — with The Roots
“Your Fandango” — with Sparks
“Someday” — with Davey Lane
“I’m Not Your Dog” — with Thomas Dolby
“Espionage” — with Narcy
“STFU” — with Rick Nielsen
“Head in the Ocean” — with Alfie
“I’m Leaving” — with The Lemon Twigs
“Eco Warrior Goddess” — with Steve Vai
Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber have seemingly shut down rumors that there is any beef between them.
The pop star, 30, and model, 25, were photographed together at the 2022 Academy Museum Gala on Saturday and appeared to be in good spirits, flashing smiles in each of the pics.
Tyrell Hampton, who captured the snapshots, shared one to his Instagram along with the caption, “plot twist.” In the photo, Selena holds Hailey’s leg as they lean into close for the shot.
The pictures come less than two weeks after Hailey’s bombshell interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast where she denied that she “stole” her husband, Justin Bieber, from Selena.
Justin proposed to Hailey in July 2018, two months after he and Selena parted ways for good, prompting “Jelena” fans to call Hailey a “homewrecker.” Hailey said, “The only people that really know the truth of the situation and what the timeline really was and how it happened and how it went down are me and him.”
“I can say, period, point blank, I was never with him when he was in a relationship with anybody. That’s the end of it,” Hailey declared. “I was raised better than that.” She added Justin choosing to “move on” with her “was the most healthy, mature decision he could have made.”
(NEW YORK) — More than six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion into neighboring Ukraine, the two countries are engaged in a struggle for control of areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose forces began an offensive in August, has vowed to take back all Russian-occupied territory. But Putin in September announced a mobilization of reservists, which is expected to call up as many as 300,000 additional troops.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 17, 5:55 AM EDT
Zaporizhzhia plant disconnected from power grid
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was disconnected from the power grid after Russian shelling on Monday, Energoatom said.
The plant’s diesel generators were started after a “short-term voltage drop,” the energy company said.
“We once again appeal to the international community to urgently take measures for the demilitarization of the ZNPP as soon as possible,” Energoatom said in a statement.
Oct 17, 3:50 AM EDT
Two trapped under rubble after drone strikes, Kyiv mayor says
Eighteen people were rescued and two were trapped under rubble after a Russian drone struck central Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Air raid sirens started blaring in the capital at about 6:30 a.m. on Monday, accompanied by at least three explosions from drone strikes.
A non-residential building in the Shevchenkinskyi district of the city was on fire, Klitschko said. At least one residential building had also been struck, Kira Rudik, a member of Ukrainian Parliament, said on Twitter.
“Critical infrastructure severely damaged. Ruined buildings,” Rudik said. “We have no time for statements about support. We need air defense asap.”
Oct 17, 3:38 AM EDT
Ukraine shoots down 37 drones, military says
Ukrainian forces shot down 37 Russian drones and three cruise missiles overnight, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.
Oct 17, 1:39 AM EDT
Drones strike Kyiv, mayor says
Multiple blasts struck Kyiv on Monday morning, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Air raid sirens were sounding in the capital, he said. He asked people to shelter in place.
Klitschko shared a photo on Twitter of what he said was the wreckage of a Kamikaze drone.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
AMERICAN LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
NY Yankees 4, Cleveland 2
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
Atlanta 28, San Francisco 14
Cincinnati 30, New Orleans 26
Indianapolis 34, Jacksonville 27
Minnesota 24, Miami 16
NY Giants 24, Baltimore 20
NY Jets 27, Green Bay 10
New England 38, Cleveland 15
Pittsburgh 20, Tampa Bay 18
LA Rams 24, Carolina 10
Seattle 19, Arizona 9
Buffalo 24, Kansas City 20
Philadelphia 26, Dallas 17
MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
Austin FC 2, Real Salt Lake 2 (Austin FC advances 3-1 on penalty kicks )
CF Montreal 2, Orlando City 0
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — The teenager suspected in the fatal shootings of five people in Raleigh, North Carolina, is still in “grave” condition, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation into the mass shooting told ABC News.
The 15-year-old was taken into custody with life-threatening injuries following a standoff with police last Thursday after the shootings occurred, according to a memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security and obtained by ABC News. It’s not clear whether the suspect’s injuries were self-inflicted, the memo said.
The teen, who has not been named, is still in the hospital in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, the official said on Sunday. While the investigation into whether the suspect’s injuries are the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, detectives believe responding police fired at the suspect, so officer-involved-shooting protocols are being followed, the official said.
Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson will file a five-day report to the Raleigh city manager on Oct. 20, which will include a detailed outline of the events during the shooting, Julia Milstead, public information officer for the city of Raleigh, told ABC News.
The report will include details on the suspect’s injuries and the type of weapon that was used in the shooting, Milstead said.
Five people were killed and two injured during the shooting, which took place in the vicinity of the Neuse River Greenway Trail in Raleigh, authorities said.
The crime scene spans over 2 miles, Patterson said. Among the victims were an off-duty police officer and a relative of the suspect, the official said. A police dog was also injured but is expected to recover, the official said.
The suspect first shot two people in the streets of the neighborhood before fleeing toward the nature trail, where he opened fire, killing three more people and wounding two others, Patterson told reporters during a news conference on Thursday.
Detectives are continuing their effort to piece together a possible motive for the shooting, the official told ABC News. A search of his juvenile records has not revealed a criminal history, the official added.
Officers searched the suspect’s home on Friday and so far have not found any social media footprint for the suspect, the official said, adding that investigators are going through handwritten material.
ABC News’ Meredith Ferrell, Elwyn Lopez, Josh Margolin, Emily Shapiro and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
(CHICAGO) — A 13-year-old boy was among five people killed in unrelated shootings across Chicago over the weekend, which also left 20 others injured, according to police.
The violent weekend in the nation’s third largest city erupted despite a 20% drop in shootings in Chicago through the end of summer, according to Chicago police crime statistics. Homicides have also plummeted 16% from last year, according to the statistics.
Despite recent efforts by police to curb shootings, at least 25 people were shot in Chicago between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, according to a review of weekend crime incidents by ABC News.
Last weekend, 30 people were shot, two fatally, in gun violence across the Chicago, police said.
Boy sitting on park bench killed
The youngest victim shot to death over the weekend was identified as 13-year-old Lavel Winslow, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. The boy was fatally shot while attending a friend’s birthday party at Lerner Park on the city’s North Side.
The shooting unfolded around 10 p.m. Friday, according to police.
“Witnesses heard loud pops followed by multiple people fleeing the area on foot,” police said in an incident report.
Winslow was found sitting on a park bench with a bullet wound to the head, according to police. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Chicago, where he was pronounced dead.
The shooter fled the scene on foot, police said. No arrests were announced as of Sunday afternoon.
The victim was an eighth-grader at West Ridge Elementary School in Chicago and had just been moved into an advanced math class, his mother told the Chicago Tribune.
“I’m just going to miss him coming in and talking to me, laying his head on my shoulder,” Vanessa Winslow said of her son, describing him as “extremely smart” and a “social, kind, just a lovable young man.”
At least 283 juveniles have been shot, 33 fatally, in Chicago this year, according to crime data analyzed by ABC station WLS-TV in Chicago.
Teenager found dead outside home
A 17-year-old boy was shot to death in the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago South Side, according to police.
The teenager, whose name has not been released, was found shot multiple times just after midnight Saturday, police said. He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
A resident of the area found the teenager unresponsive after hearing multiple gunshots outside his home, police said.
Detectives were working Sunday to identify the killer. No arrests were announced.
Hotel lounge killing
A fight that erupted inside a hotel lounge in the Old Town Triangle neighborhood of Chicago ended in a shooting that left a 35-year-old man dead and his killer on the run, according to police.
The shooting occurred around 1:21 a.m. Sunday. Police said the victim was shot in the chest during a physical altercation.
The victim, whose name was not immediately released, was pronounced dead at Masonic Medical Center in Chicago.
The suspected gunman fled the hotel lounge and police were working Sunday to identify him. No arrests were announced.
Fatally shot in the back
Two people were shot, one fatally, when gunfire broke out in a third-floor hallway of a building on Chicago’s South Side, police said. The shooting unfolded around 11 p.m. Saturday, police said.
A 27-year-old man, whose name was not immediately released, died at the scene from a gunshot wound to the back, authorities said. A 25-year-old woman was shot in the left leg during the incident, according to police.
No arrests have been made.
Fatal home invasion
A 22-year-old man was shot to death when a gunman forced his way into the victim’s apartment and shot him multiple times, according to police.
The shooting occurred just after 5 p.m. on Saturday at a home in the North Lawndale section of Chicago’s West Side.
The victim was pronounced dead at the scene from gunshot wounds to his back and chest, according to police.
No arrests were announced.
60-year-old man shot on a train
Among 20 people wounded in shootings over the weekend was a 60-year-old man, who was shot multiple times while riding on a Red Line train early Saturday, according to police.
The victim, whose name was not released, was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, authorities said.
The suspected gunman remained at large on Sunday. The suspect fled the train when it stopped at the 87th Street Station in the Chatham neighborhood of the city’s South Side.
The shooting unfolded just after 6 a.m. when the victim and the suspect got into an argument, according to police.
Among the other non-fatal shootings over the weekend, a 62-year-old man police alleged was attacking a woman with a knife was shot by a woman who intervened.
The incident occurred just after 8 p.m. on Friday in the Humboldt Park neighborhood in the northwest area of the city. Police said a 33-year-old woman was attempting to enter a residential building when she was attacked by the knife-wielding assailant, who stabbed her in the hand and leg, police said.
An armed 54-year-old woman interrupted the attack and shot the assailant in the chest, police said. The alleged perpetrator was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition.
The woman who shot the suspect was taken to a police station for questioning. No charges were announced and the incident remains under investigation.
(WASHINGTON) — With year-over-year inflation barely easing in the latest Consumer Price Index report despite sharp increases in interest rates meant to cool the economy, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday that a recession is “possible but not inevitable.”
Buttigieg was asked in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” if the threat of recession worried him.
“Look, it’s possible but not inevitable. … A part of why we do see a lot of pressure on prices is that while the demand has come back, Americans have more income because Americans have jobs in this almost historically low level of unemployment,” Buttigieg told anchor George Stephanopoulos, adding that it’s “been hard for the supply side to keep up.”
“That’s a big part of what we’re working on — on the infrastructure side — dealing with some of the bottlenecks we have, dealing with some of the constraints that we have in transportation infrastructure that’s needed to be upgraded for decades,” Buttigieg said, referring to a supply-chain crunch exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Joe Biden said last week that he believed an economic downturn was unlikely but conceded there could be a “very slight recession.” His comments came after Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase CEO, warned a recession is likely within six to nine months because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and historically high inflation and the rising interest rates to combat those prices.
The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates five times so far this year and is expected to again next month.
Stephanopoulos pressed Buttigieg on what more Biden could do about rising prices after the president said he would soon be announcing more steps to tackle inflation and, particularly, the cost of gas.
Buttigieg emphasized that he didn’t want to “get ahead of the president,” but he highlighted how Biden had ordered the release of fuel from the country’s strategic petroleum reserve and waived a requirement on ethanol blending for gas stations.
“This is part of a bigger focus that the president has sustained throughout this year on fighting inflation and creating more of that breathing room for American families,” Buttigieg said.
While gas prices have fallen sharply from a summer high — now averaging about $3.90, down from $5.02 in mid-June — they are 20 cents higher than they were just a month ago, according to AAA. Buttigieg laid some of the blame with oil companies, who have defended themselves from criticism of excessive profits.
The economic headwinds could cost Democrats their slim congressional majorities this November.
Stephanopoulos asked Buttigieg how the party should address high inflation with just 23 days until the midterm elections. Polls show it is a major factor in Biden’s low approval rating, with voters giving Republicans the advantage on handling the economy — and Republicans have, in turn, made the state of the economy central to their campaign messaging.
“Good policy is good politics. And we have been doing the right thing for the American people with proposals and achievements, legislatively, that are popular because they make sense,” Buttigieg said. He pointed to a bipartisan infrastructure funding bill that was signed in 2021, which has allowed for improvements to bridges, roads and airports across the country, as well as the recently enacted Infrastructure Reduction Act (IRA), which contains provisions aimed at lowering health care costs.
Buttigieg suggested that the November elections were important for making sure those policies continue: “It’s why we can’t turn back on the progress that’s been made, especially because we know there’s still a long way to go.”
He cited some conservative objections to allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, which was a major part of the IRA. GOP lawmakers have said the negotiation power is a “price control” that will hamstring pharmaceutical development.
“It’s the wrong time to do anything that would increase costs for health care or anything else for the American people,” Buttigieg said.
Stephanopoulos asked whether Biden should spend more time highlighting the White House’s other 2021 successes, like the direct COVID relief payments and a temporary expansion of the child tax credit which expired at the end of last year.
Buttigieg said “we are proud of those accomplishments,” and then noted what he believed were others, such as a funding bill for domestic manufacturing, a veterans’ health care bill and Biden’s initial COVID-19 relief bill when the economy “was at risk of going into free-fall.”
“In some ways having achieved so much legislatively makes it hard to talk about all at once because there are just so many,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The House Jan. 6 committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot would need to negotiate with former President Donald Trump if he were to offer to testify live in response to the panel’s subpoena, Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Sunday.
“I think that’s going to be a negotiation,” Kinzinger, R-Ill., a member of the committee, told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I’ll only address that when we know for sure whether or not the president has tried to push to come in and talk to us live.”
“He’s made it clear he has nothing to hide, [that’s] what he said. So he should come in on the day we asked him to come in. If he pushes off beyond that, we’ll figure out what to do next,” Kinzinger said.
He dodged Stephanopoulos’ question on whether Trump should be held in criminal contempt if he does not comply with the subpoena.
“Do you believe that the Justice Department, if the president refuses, should hold him in criminal contempt?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“That’s a bridge we cross if we have to get there,” Kinzinger said, adding, “We’re at a bit of a time limit here. And as we’re wrapping up the investigation, we’re also pursuing new leads and facts.”
Trump has not yet said if he will comply with the committee subpoena but did send the panel a 14-page screed reiterating his election fraud conspiracies.
“We made a decision in front of the American people, not behind closed doors, to begin the process of subpoenaing the former president,” Kinzinger said on “This Week.” “He’s required by law to come in. And he can ramble and push back all he wants.”
Kinzinger’s comments come after the House panel on Thursday voted to subpoena Trump — a rare but not unheard of demand of a former president — as the committee enters the final months of its investigation into the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Committee members have cast the subpoena as an effort to hear directly from Trump on what he did and did not do and what he did and did not know regarding Jan. 6.
Previous committee hearings have detailed how, according to Trump’s former aides and others, he knew there was no legal basis for his scheme to stay in power and was aware his claims of election fraud in 2020 were baseless but continued to push his supporters to march to the Capitol — even as he knew some of them were armed.
Trump has said the investigation is politically motivated and that he did nothing wrong.
The committee, which is not expected to continue into the next Congress, is in the process of formulating its final report, which will include legislative recommendations on how to stop another insurrection and ensure elections are certified at the state and federal levels.
On Sunday, Stephanopoulos pressed Kinzinger on if the committee will be making a criminal referral, which would be a notable recommendation but is not required to open a probe of Trump’s conduct. Kinzinger noted that the government is already investigating.
“It’s not a mandate, but I think … we’re certainly going to address that issue, and we’ll have more to come on that when we make that decision,” Kinzinger said.
“The Justice Department appears to be pursuing this pretty hard,” he said.
Asked about the “threat” from how widespread election denial has become in the Republican Party, despite the lack of evidence, Kinzinger, who is stepping down as a Republican lawmaker in January, said, “I don’t think this is just going to go away organically.”
The public had power to push back as well, he said: “This is going to take the American people really standing up and making the decision that truth matters.”
