KISS‘ Gene Simmons says he’s “fine” after undergoing a medical procedure this week to remove excess kidney stones.
In a tweet Monday afternoon, Gene’s wife, Shannon Tweed-Simmons, shared a photo of the rocker in the hospital alongside the caption, “@genesimmons getting #kidneystones blasted again! #poorbaby.”
Gene later posted his own hospital video thanking everyone for checking in on him.
“Honestly I’m fine,” Gene wrote. “Shannon took the video…Just cleaning the tubes for excess kidney stones. Looks awful, but really no big deal.”
“Took an hour, then drove to have a hot dog,” he added. “I appreciate your good wishes.”
Simmons was previously treated for kidney stones in 2019, which forced KISS to postpone several shows.
(WAUKESHA, Wis.) — A sentencing hearing for Darrell Brooks, the man convicted of murdering six people after driving his SUV through a Christmas parade in Wisconsin, was briefly suspended Tuesday due to a threat made on the Waukesha courthouse, the judge said.
Dozens of survivors of last year’s attack in Waukesha are planning to address Brooks during the two-day sentencing hearing, which started Tuesday morning.
About 90 minutes into the hearing, the court went into recess shortly before 10 a.m. local time after Judge Jennifer Dorow said she was advised by the sheriff “that their communication center had received a threat to the courthouse,” she told the court.
Court proceedings resumed over an hour later, around 11:15 a.m.
“The sheriff has assured me that this building is quite safe — ‘very secure,’ were his words — and that he has taken all reasonable measures to secure the courthouse this time,” she said.
Dorow apologized for the “abrupt disruption” to the victims’ statements.
“I am confident that we can go forward at this time,” she said.
Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow said the sheriff’s office is investigating the credibility of “an anonymous threat” to the Waukesha County Courthouse.
“County offices are conducting business as usual,” he said on Twitter. “If you are in the Courthouse, you may notice an increased presence of law enforcement personnel.”
Brooks, 40, was found guilty last month on all 76 counts, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide, for barreling his SUV into a Christmas parade on Nov. 21, 2021. He dismissed his public defenders during the trial and went on to represent himself.
Prosecutors expect 45 people, including nine children, to make victim impact statements during the two-day sentencing hearing, ABC Milwaukee affiliate WISN reported.
Brooks’ sentencing has been scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Bonnie Raitt is extending her time on the road. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer just announced her Just Like That tour will continue through 2023, adding more U.S. shows as well as dates in the U.K. and Ireland. The U.S. dates, which kick off March 10 in Indio, California, include a three-night stand at The Venetian Theater inside The Venetian Resort Las Vegas.
The Sin City gigs will go down March 15, 17 and 18, with Bonnie backed by her longtime band. Not only that, she’s promising fans she’ll be joined by some “special guests.”
As for the rest of the tour, the U.S. shows run through May 23, and then, the U.K. and Ireland legs kick off June 1. Tickets are set to go on sale to the general public Friday at 10 a.m. local time.
The new dates follow a successful year of touring for Bonnie thus far; the legendary performer’s currently headlining a 75-date U.S. tour. She next hits the stage Tuesday night in Melbourne, Florida.
(MERRITT ISLAND, Fla.) — The Artemis I rocket is set for launch early Wednesday morning, the latest attempt to send an unmanned capsule near the moon after a series of postponements due to weather and mechanical issues.
NASA pushed back a takeoff scheduled for Monday after Hurricane Nicole made landfall about 85 miles south of Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The rocket, which remained on the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center during the storm, sustained “minor” damage that would be easy to repair, Jim Free, associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said in a press conference Friday.
The launch marks the first step in an ambitious plan to establish a long-term presence on the moon for scientific discovery and economic development. Eventually, the Artemis expedition could lead to the first crewed space trip to Mars, according to NASA.
The space capsule will travel for roughly 25 days — reaching as close as 60 miles from the moon, and then 40,000 miles above the moon when orbiting over its dark side — before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on Dec. 11.
If Artemis is declared ready, a two-hour window will open at 1:04 a.m. ET. If needed, the back-up windows are Saturday, Nov. 19, and Friday, Nov. 25. NASA will broadcast the launch on NASA TV.
The mission has suffered a series of setbacks since an original launch date that was expected to feature Vice President Kamala Harris in attendance among about 100,000 spectators.
NASA called off that initial takeoff, set for Aug. 29, after a defective sensor prevented one of the rocket’s engines from cooling down to a temperature required before ignition.
Days later, a second launch attempt on Sept. 3 was scrubbed after the space agency identified a liquid hydrogen leak.
A third planned launch attempt, on Sept. 27, faced postponement due to Hurricane Ian. The rocket was moved off the launchpad to protect it, as Ian wrought destruction along its path northward from Florida to the Carolinas.
On the whole, the Artemis expedition includes four missions, each of which will cost roughly $4.1 billion. In all, the project will cost up to $93 billion by 2025, according to an audit from the NASA Office of the Inspector General.
If Artemis I is successful, Artemis II will take four astronauts near the moon in 2024. After that, Artemis III will take a crewed spacecraft for a moon landing. Finally, Artemis IV will fly to a space station near the moon.
Over the course of the Artemis missions, NASA plans to eventually send the first female astronaut and the first astronaut of color to the moon.
NASA hopes the Artemis expedition will enable a crewed trip to Mars in the ensuing years.
Kate Winslet has opened up her heart — and her purse — to come to the rescue of a Scottish family plagued by bills stemming from a 12-year-old girl’s life support equipment.
BBC Scotland reports the family of Freya Hunter was threatened with a massive heating and power bill, thanks to rising home heating fuel and electricity costs. The cerebral palsy patient requires an oxygen generator and other machines to keep her alive.
Her mother Carolynne started a GoFundMe to try to ease the burden on the Tillicoultry family and get the government’s help for others who may be imperiled as winter approaches and U.K. residents potentially face blackouts and bills as high as 73% over normal.
Hunter admitted she already has to go without heat in many rooms in her home just to keep her daughter’s room warm.
Winslet heard the news and kicked in £17,000 — about 20 grand in U.S. dollars — to cover the Hunters’ heating and energy bill for the year. As shocked as Carolynne was, she told the news agency she was even more surprised that the Oscar and Emmy winner got in touch to pass along well wishes.
“When I heard about the money I just burst into tears – I thought it wasn’t even real. I’m still thinking, ‘Is this real?'” she exclaimed.
Hunter also added, “I’m going to be helped but what about everyone else? I wanted the government to pay for it and do the right thing — it shouldn’t have to be a celebrity that steps in.”
Nickelback has premiered a new song called “High Time,” a track off their upcoming album, Get Rollin’.
In case you couldn’t guess what the “High Time” is about from its title, the tune opens with the sound of a lighter being lit and someone coughing.
You can listen to “High Time” now via digital outlets and watch its accompanying lyric video streaming now on YouTube.
Get Rollin’, Nickelback’s 10th studio effort and the follow-up to 2017’s Feed the Machine, arrives this Friday, November 18. It also includes the previously released songs “San Quentin” and “Those Days.”
Earlier this week, it was announced that Nickelback will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. The group, which hails from Hanna, Alberta, will officially be enshrined during the 2023 Juno Awards, taking place March 13.
(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter late last month as CEO has ignited a public conversation about whether the billionaire will obstruct or encourage free speech on the social media platform, which has about 240 million active users worldwide.
An early sign of Musk’s direction may be evident by his inner circle, the center of which stands Alex Spiro, his personal attorney. Known as a powerhouse attorney representing world-renowned celebrities and athletes, Spiro is also a staunch free speech advocate, particularly in cases that intersect hip-hop music and criminal justice reform.
Concerns over the future of free speech on Twitter have come largely from Musk’s own posts since he took control of the company. Although he has said that existing laws protect Twitter from hate speech, he has said Twitter cannot be “considered inclusive or fair if it is biased against half the country,” which has made some worry that leniency toward extreme voices may be in the platform’s future.
A flood of fake accounts impersonating public figures and brands overtook the platform last week after the launch of paid verification badges, raising fears about the supercharged spread of misinformation. Musk himself posted a link to a story about a baseless conspiracy theory about the recent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Musk later took the tweet down. Musk has also said that accounts impersonating others will not be tolerated unless they clearly state they are parody accounts.
Spiro declined to discuss Musk or Twitter for this story, but he did tell ABC News that free speech “is a core, fundamental belief” of Spiro’s that has guided his career, which started when he was a prosecutor in Manhattan with the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
“I’m hoping that free speech in music is something we could all get behind,” he told ABC News.
A “mirror” of Musk
Spiro met Musk in 2019 when representing him in a defamation lawsuit by British cave diver Vernon Unsworth, in which the Tesla CEO had called Unsworth a “pedo guy.” Spiro won that case on Musk’s behalf, arguing that Musk was ultimately trying to fund efforts to save a group of Thai teenagers who were trapped in a cave and saying the comment was a “throwaway insult” after Unsworth tried unsuccessfully to characterize him as a “billionaire bully.”
“The First Amendment does not [just] protect compliments and happy speak, it protects unfavorable speech. It protects all speech,” Spiro said in a recent Original Jurisdiction podcast interview. “If we start policing speech, where are we? We’re in a bad place in our society and in our world.”
After that, Spiro continued to represent Musk in various legal battles, including continuous investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, one involving Musk’s appeal to a $40 million SEC settlement for alleged securities fraud. Bill Burck, a co-managing partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, who helped recruit Spiro to the firm in 2016, said Musk required an attorney who was also a personal confidante.
Musk “clearly thinks outside of the box and he follows the beat of his own drum, and he looks for intellectual courage and extreme dedication,” Burck told ABC News. “Alex mirrors that. He is probably one of the very few people who can keep up with the ideas and not be hamstrung or straightjacketed by the perceived wisdom. That’s probably the larger reason why he has clearly gotten Musk’s trust in a way that very few other lawyers have.”
Even in his early days, fresh out of Harvard Law School and working as a prosecutor in New York, Spiro demonstrated the strength required “to tell clients the truth,” said attorney Elliot Felig, who worked with Spiro in 2009 when both were prosecutors at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
“Alex is the most confident courtroom attorney I’ve ever seen. Beyond that, he had a thirst for trying cases that was unparalleled,” he told ABC News. “I think Elon Musk has a fearlessness and I suspect Alex is a good match.”
Spiro, 39, was born in New York City but grew up in Boston. Early in his career, he worked at Harvard’s McLean Hospital where he helped run a program for children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome until he realized he could do more for their plight through the justice system. “I went to law school sort of by accident,” he told the Original Jurisdiction podcast audience.
His interest in psychology served him well early in his life when it became clear he could relate to not just clients, but jurors from all walks of life, Felig said.
“The best prosecutors love being on trial and Alex loved being on trial. He wanted trials. He would go door to door looking for trials,” he said. “The desire he had was innate. You can’t teach it. It’s a competitive spirit that some professional athletes have. They love the competition.”
Working to decriminalize rap lyrics
Along the way, Spiro became a serious advocate for hip-hop artists who he believed were unfairly having their music and lyrics weaponized against them in court by criminal prosecutors. He told ABC News his interest in overturning wrongful convictions originated from observing prosecutors using the YouTube rap videos of defendants to characterize them as dangerous in order to have a judge deny their bail. The trend, he said, struck him as “particularly problematic and a hill to die on.”
He ended up representing prominent hip-hop artists, including Jay-Z, 21 Savage, Meek Mill, Chance the Rapper and others, earning the title of “hip-hop’s most sought-after criminal justice attorney” by Billboard. He defended Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda, then on trial for gang conspiracy charges, in 2016, and remains the lead attorney for Jay-Z and his Roc Nation roster of artists — a designation that required defending 21 Savage, who was arrested in 2019 for alleged immigration violations. (The case is still pending).
Along the way, Jay-Z enlisted Spiro to lead several criminal justice reform cases that had nothing to do with the music industry, such as filing a complaint in 2020 with the U.S. District Court in Greenville, Mississippi, on behalf of 29 inmates who authorities said were involved in a spate of violence that left five prisoners dead. Spiro argued that the deaths instead resulted from years of staff shortages and neglect in the state prison system.
Spiro also frequently partners with Erik Nielson, a liberal arts professor at the University of Richmond who has written extensively about hip-hop, to advocate for legislation to limit the use of rap lyrics used against defendants in criminal trials. Their work helped a law pass in California, and a similar bill is pending in both New York and New Jersey. Spiro co-wrote the bill and helped get stars such as Jay-Z, Killer Mike, Big Sean, and others to sign letters of support. A similar bill, the Restoring Artistic Protection Act, is working its way through the U.S. House of Representatives.
His advocacy originated in the case of Pittsburgh rapper Jamal Knox, who was found guilty in 2013 of threatening two police officers in his song, “F— the Police.” Nielson said there are hundreds of cases like Knox’s, and he and Spiro — who works pro bono on cases involving the legislation — talk regularly about which potential cases could use their support.
“One thing about Alex is he really does walk the walk. He can achieve a lot in a very short period of time,” Nielson told ABC News. “He’s been an invaluable advocate of serious issues involving rap artists. He is driven and he is very effective, and so I can understand why someone like Elon Musk would rely on him.”
Adam Lambert is looking back at his American Idol audition and admits his life would have looked very different had he not chose to perform Queen‘s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
“What I remember is that I went in there singing a Michael Jackson song, and the judges kind of looked at me like they weren’t sure about it. They weren’t really feeling it,” Lambert told ET Canada. He had no intentions of leaving the audition without a golden ticket, so he offered to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
“If I hadn’t have picked that, I don’t know if the past decade would have looked like how it looked,” Lambert said. “It’s kind of one of those fate things where you have to give fate… a little nudge, but something stepped in and took care of me.”
“It was an interesting time [in my life] because I was 27 and I had been doing theatre in L.A… But it slowly started one of like fantasizing about like, ‘Oh, I want to be an artist. I want to do this like outside of theatre. I want to make my own music. I want to write my own music,'” he added.
Lambert also toyed with the idea of which Idol judge would make a great duet partner. “I want to hear Simon [Cowell] sing. Because I bet he can’t,” Adam laughed, adding Randy Jackson would be “really fun” to sing with.
But there’s only one judge he had in mind. “It’s got to be Paula [Abdul],” he said. “She’s amazing.” Lambert also entertained the idea of duetting with former judge Mariah Carey, though she came to the judges table “after my time.”
Lambert finished as runner-up in the 2009 season of Idol, losing to Kris Allen.
(NEW YORK) — People who smoke marijuana were more likely to have certain types of lung damage than people who smoked cigarettes, according to a new study that reviewed lung scans of smokers. The researchers who led the study say their findings suggest smoking marijuana may be more harmful than people realize.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at least one-fifth of Americans have tried marijuana at least once. With more states legalizing the drug, it has become the most commonly used drug that is still illegal at a federal level.
Some health effects, such as brain development issues, high blood pressure, and increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, have been studied. However, according to Dr. Albert Rizzo, lung doctor and chief medical officer of the American Lung Association, “We don’t know the long-term effects of marijuana as we do for the long-term effects of tobacco.”
Researchers from Ottawa Hospital General in Canada compared approximately 150 lung scans from marijuana smokers, tobacco-only smokers and nonsmokers. The study found that rates of emphysema, airway inflammation and enlarged breast tissue were higher in marijuana than in tobacco smokers.
The scans showed that 75% of the marijuana smokers had emphysema. Slightly less than 70% of tobacco-only smokers had emphysema, while only 5% of nonsmokers had it.
Emphysema, a form of chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD), is the third leading cause of death in the U.S.
“There are air sacs in your lungs that are getting bigger than they should. As they get bigger, they are less efficient than they should be for gas exchange,” Rizzo said. The condition is caused by long-term exposure to irritants such as smoke, leading to irreversible lung damage.
“Marijuana smokers had more emphysema, a disease that causes difficulty breathing, than heavy tobacco smokers and nonsmokers,” said Dr. Giselle Revah, study co-author and cardiothoracic radiologist.
Doctors say there are several reasons marijuana might cause more lung damage than tobacco.
“Marijuana smokers breathe in more deeply, and they hold their breath longer, before they exhale. You combine the irritating effect of longer exposure and deeper inhalation of these toxins,” Rizzo said.
Tobacco smoke is also filtered, but marijuana smoke is not. All of these factors contribute to inflammation and irreversible damage, doctors say.
“Anything you inhale that could irritate the lungs would not be advisable, so I would recommend they stop,” Rizzo said. However, he recognizes that some users have medical necessity — for those individuals, he recommends a discussion with your doctor, who may be able to convert you to another, safer form of the drug, such as an ingestible form.
“There is a public perception that marijuana is safe. This study signals that marijuana could be more harmful than people realize,” Revah said.
Alicia Zellmer, M.D., and Joy Liu, M.D., are resident physicians in Internal Medicine and members of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — Four University of Idaho students were killed in “an isolated, targeted attack” with an “edged weapon” like a knife, police revealed on Tuesday.
The students, who were found dead on Sunday, were identified by the Moscow, Idaho, police as: Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona; and Kaylee GonCalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho.
Moscow police Capt. Anthony Dahlinger told the Idaho Statesman that all four students are considered victims, not suspects.
“We certainly have a crime here, so we are looking for a suspect,” he told the newspaper.
No one is in custody but police said they believe there’s “no imminent threat to the community.”
The victims were found at an off-campus house around noon on Sunday when officers responded to a report of an unconscious person, according to police. When officers arrived, they found the four students dead, police said.
Police said they’re working to “re-create the victims’ activities” on Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
The fatalities appear to be a “one-off type of situation,” Moscow Mayor Art Bettge told ABC News on Monday.
“Something had occurred that resulted in these deaths — there was no robbery,” he said.
The weapon wasn’t found at the scene, police added.
Chapin, a freshman, was in the Sigma Chi fraternity and was majoring in recreation, sport and tourism management, university president Scott Green said.
Mogen, a senior, and Kernodle, a junior, were both marketing majors in the Pi Beta Phi sorority, Green said.
Goncalves, a senior, was majoring in general studies and was in the Alpha Phi sorority, Green said.
“Words cannot adequately describe the light these students brought to this world or ease the depth of suffering we feel at their passing under these tragic circumstances,” Green said in a statement. “The university is working directly with those affected and is committed to supporting all students, families and employees as this event undeniably touches all of us.”
The police department said it’s “deeply saddened for the families of these individuals, fellow students and friends, and our community during this time. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to each and every person affected by this incident.”
Anyone with information is asked to call the Moscow Police Department at 208-882-2677.
ABC News’ Marilyn Heck and Nicholas Cirone contributed to this report.
