Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd brought down the house at New York Comic Con on Saturday, where they reminisced about their partnership in the Back to the Future trilogy.
The pair chatted about how Fox came to replace Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly in the 1985 blockbuster — after weeks of filming with Stoltz as the lead.
“I felt that I barely made it through the [first] six weeks, and now I was gonna have to do it again?!” Lloyd recalled thinking.
Fox — who at the time was doing double-duty as the star of Family Ties — immediately made an impact, continued Lloyd. “The chemistry was there from the first scene we had…It hasn’t gone away, by the way,” he noted.
Fox said all he had to do was “react” to the “brilliant” Lloyd playing the eccentric Dr. Emmett Brown. He added, “It was a thrill. Anytime I got to work with him, I knew it was gonna be a good day.”
Fox retired from acting in 2020 because of his Parkinson’s diagnosis. He remained inspiring, even as he at times struggled with the spasms from the disease, for which he’s raised $800 million through his eponymous foundation.
Fox’s sense of humor was very much intact: At one point, a source tells ABC Audio that a tic caused Fox to drop his gum out of his mouth onto the couch. Immediately, he scooped it up and popped it back in. “You saw it here first, folks: The moment I just got COVID,” he joked.
Fox later said, “I’ve said to people [Parkinson’s] is a gift, and they say, ‘You’re nuts.’ …But it’s a gift, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
The pair also signed autographs for hundreds of fans, who Fox explained “gave me my whole life.”
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Justin Timberlake brought sexy back to a crowd of 1300 people in Santa Monica over the weekend, performing a sweaty 40-minute set at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles gala — the first time the event has been held since 2019.
Billboard reports that the gala landed JT as the entertainment because his pal Nikki DeLoach, a fellow former cast member of The All-New Mickey Mouse Club, is the chairman of the CHLA Foundation Board of Trustees.
According to Billboard, Justin and his band, billed as Justin Timberlake & the Undercovers, performed for 40 minutes, singing cover versions like Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin’,” Stevie Wonder‘s “Knocks Me Off My Feet,” Al Green‘s “Love and Happiness,” and standards like “Smile” and “The Way You Look Tonight.”
Justin also performed some of his own hits, including “Suit & Tie,” “Señorita,” and his number-one hit “Can’t Fight the Feeling!,” to which he added a bit of Bill Withers‘ classic “Lovely Day.”
The event raised a record $5.5 million, and was attended by many celebrities with personal connections to the hospital, like Jimmy Kimmel, whose son Billy had several open-heart surgeries there when he was a baby. Billboard reports that another reason Justin may have been compelled to perform is because his wife Jessica Biel‘s niece had life-saving heart surgery at the hospital.
“My kids have not had the need to be at CHLA,” Justin told the crowd, according to Billboard. “I think about all the lives that all of you saved, and I just want you to know that y’all are not unnoticed — especially to a father like me to a 7-year-old and a 2-year-old.”
The Apple TV+ documentary follows Selena over six years, detailing her mental and physical health struggles as she deals with lupus, anxiety and depression. In the two-and-a-half-minute trailer, we see both the glamorous side of Selena’s life — onstage and at big events — and her more vulnerable side, where she’s crying in a hospital, visiting childhood friends, or becoming emotional when she talks about how she never feels “good enough.”
In a voiceover, the singer and actress says, “Just be who you are, Selena. No one cares about what you’re doing. It’s about who I am, being okay with where I am. I am grateful to be alive.”
We also hear a snippet of a song in which Selena sings, “My mind and me/we don’t get along sometimes/It gets hard to breathe/but I wouldn’t change my life.”
The doc is directed by Alek Keshishian, who was behind the iconic 1991 documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare, and who also helmed Selena’s clip for “Hands to Myself.” It has its world premiere at Hollywood’s AFI Fest on November 2, and will then premiere globally on Apple TV+ on November 4.
ABC’s Pierre Thomas traveled to Chicago for an exclusive conversation with police Superintendent David Brown as part of ABC’s continuing coverage of guns in America. – John Parkinson/ABC News
(CHICAGO) — Over one recent weekend in Chicago, two children under the age of 10 became victims of the city’s rampant gun violence.
Mateo Zastro, 3, was shot and killed while in the car with his mother and siblings in an apparent road rage incident on Sept. 30. Then 7-year-old Legend Barr was shot and wounded as his family arrived at church on Oct. 2.
ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas spent a day with Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown for an inside look at the department’s efforts to curb gun violence — incidents affecting many Chicagoans — throughout the city.
“It’s the most complex policing landscape ever in this country’s history. We are making progress, but the complexities make it such that it is so fragile,” Brown told Thomas. “The ebbs and flows of violence are persistent.”
While shootings like those that killed Zastro and wounded Barr continue, the violence does seem to be ebbing: An ABC News/Gun Violence Archives analysis of the nation’s 50 largest cities shows homicides are down nearly 5% from last year after two years of pandemic-era increases.
In Chicago, shootings are down 20% through the end of summer and homicides have fallen 16%. That means 101 fewer people were shot this year than last.
What’s behind the small but encouraging decline? The Chicago police credit both community engagement as well as a new, more surgical deployment of officers to crime scenes after an analysis by the department showed half of all shootings and homicides occurred on 55 “beats,” or areas that are roughly the size of a block.
According to Brown, police have also been taking an average of 12,000 guns off Chicago’s streets every year — including “ghost guns,” which are unregistered firearms that can be assembled from at-home kits.
But Brown told Thomas that’s likely only 10% of the illegal firearms out there. “I don’t think we’re even chipping away,” Brown said.
Police say they have another powerful tool in their investigations, however: The department uses a system called “ShotSpotter,” where sound sensors are placed throughout Chicago to detect and locate gunfire.
“It’s like the intelligence network for how we respond to crime, how we solve crime,” Brown said. “I think more importantly, this is one of our major linchpins for how we prevent crime.”
Thomas had rare access inside the department’s technology center, where officers comb through surveillance camera footage from businesses and homes near crime scenes to identify and track down suspects. Brown said using such footage also protects witnesses who are “fearful to come forward,” while still helping solve cases.
In 2021, the department said it had cleared about half of its homicide cases, a nearly 20-year high, though a quarter of those did not result in prosecutors bringing charges, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
Brown stressed to Thomas that gun violence was a multi-pronged issue.
“We’re talking about policing, but this is about economic development,” he said. “This is about poverty. This is about, in many instances, race.”
Community investment and engagement
Brown touted Chicago’s $1.4 billion investment to revitalize South and West side communities, which are disproportionately affected by crime.
“Our impoverished communities in Chicago here, we just did not have the commitment,” he said.
Brown explained his belief in economic development as a crime-fighting tactic by comparing his city to New York City’s Harlem neighborhood.
“You look at Harlem in New York today versus Harlem in New York 30 years ago, where you see actually some gentrification, but you see, really, a commitment to economic development. And you see Harlem much safer than it was 30 years ago,” Brown said.
“You did not have that here in Chicago,” he continued. “We’re starting to see that commitment now. So that we can have that sustained decline, because we are investing in affordable housing. We’re investing in jobs, we’re investing in mental health services and other drug treatments, social services.”
Brown showed Thomas what he says is an example of how that support has made an impact, visiting an area once known for being a crime hotspot that’s now been turned into a basketball court and green space for the community.
“Instead of it being an attraction to hand-to-hand drug transactions, it’s an attraction to community engagement with each other and with police,” Brown said.
With decreased crime and increased investment, the area can foster something more important, the superintendent said.
“Hope, hope, people have hope. People who have hope can have dreams of a better life. People who have dreams of a better life are not attracted to violence,” Brown said. “That’s what economic development does — different than what policing does.”
Working to build trust
Community engagement is another strategy Chicago police have been employing, one Brown told Thomas is key to gaining trust in communities of color, especially in light of high-profile police killings like George Floyd’s murder by an officer in Minneapolis.
“How difficult has it been?” Thomas asked of forging bonds between police and those they are assigned to protect.
“[It] made it more difficult to even be heard,” Brown said.
He also acknowledged the role race plays in perspectives on crime and policing.
“The demographics are what they are, in terms of people who look like you and me, who are shooters and are victims,” Thomas said. “How, as a Black man and as a law enforcement executive, do you balance how you feel about that?”
Brown said: “I think the first step for me personally is to never forget where I’ve come from.”
ABC News’ Jack Date, Quinn Owen and John Parkinson contributed to this report.
Walker Hayes’ new duet with Flo Rida, “High Heels,” might seem like an uptempo party tune, but in his verse, the country star dives into some real-life subject matters.
“You know my life is like / Giddy up, giddy up, family daddy / Almost got that Grammy / But I guess they don’t do ‘Fancy Like’ me,” he sings, in a tip of the hat to his Grammy nomination for his breakout mega-hit, “Fancy Like.”
Despite the disappointments, Walker’s life has lots of bright spots, such as his faith, the “low miles on my Prius” and the “free food” at Applebee’s ever since he shouted out the restaurant chain in “Fancy Like”’s lyrics.
Another line in the song reads, “I’ll take my whiskey neat to hide my mixed emotions,” which is a personal sentiment for Walker, too. He has seven years of sobriety under his belt.
The singer spoke about his experiences with addiction during a recent conversation with Country Faith Radio with Hillary Scott on Apple Music Country. Walker explained that deep-rooted family issues and a tumultuous relationship with the country music industry led him toward what he describes as a “Godless phase,” and that took its toll on his relationship with his wife Laney.
“I’m an alcoholic. I’m seven years sober now, but I wasn’t thinking about becoming sober for a very long time,” the singer recounts. “That was a problem in our marriage.”
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson won’t be adding president of the United States as one of his roles any time soon.
The wrestler-turned-actor has toyed for a while with the idea of running for POTUS, but during a new interview he declared that the idea is “off the table” so he can focus on being a dad.
“I love our country and everyone in it I also love being a daddy. And that the most important thing to me,” he explained during CBS Sunday Morning on October 9.
“Especially during this time, this critical time in my daughters’ lives,” continued Johnson. “Because I know what it was like to be on the road and be so busy that I was absent for a lot of years for my first daughter’s growing up, [at] this critical age at this critical time in her life. And that’s what the presidency will do.”
Johnson, 50, has three daughters: Simone Johnson, 21, with ex Dany Garcia, and Jasmine Johnson, 6, and Tiana Johnson, 4, with wife Lauren Hashian.
“Sure, CEO sounds great, but the #1 thing I want to be is daddy. That’s it,” The Black Adam star added.
Netflix on Saturday debuted the official trailer for its upcoming Addams Family series, Wednesday, which revealed Saturday Night Live alum Fred Armisen playing the role of Uncle Fester. The dark comedy is focused on a grown-up Wednesday Addams — played by Jenna Ortega — navigating her way as a student at Nevermore Academy, and a budding psychic with strange powers, as her hometown is terrorized by a spree of monstrous killings. Luiz Guzmán and Catherine Zeta-Jones, respectively, play Wednesday’s parents Morticia and Gomez. Wednesday premieres November 23 on Netflix…
Disney+’s upcoming Goosebumps series has added Justin Long as a regular cast member, according to Variety. The 10-episode series, based on the R.L. Stine books, follows “a group of five high-schoolers who unleash supernatural forces upon their town and must all work together — thanks to and in spite of their friendships, rivalries, and pasts with each other — in order to save it, learning much about their own parents’ teenage secrets in the process.” Long will play Nathan Bratt, “the new schoolteacher who develops a terrifying connection to a decades-old supernatural murder.” Disney is the parent company of ABC News…
NBC has ordered America’s Got Talent: All-Stars, a spinoff to its long-running competition series America’s Got Talent, according to The Hollywood Reporter. AGT host Terry Crews will also serve as host of the new series, while executive producer Simon Cowell will judge along with Heidi Klum and Howie Mandel. Contestants will include “winners, finalists, fan favorites and viral sensations” from the show’s past 17 seasons. America’s Got Talent: All-Stars is set to premiere sometime in 2023…
Keanu Reeves has pulled out of Hulu’s adaptation of The Devil in the White City, according to Variety. The show, based on Erik Larson‘s book, “tells the true story of Daniel H. Burnham, a demanding but visionary architect who races to make his mark on history with the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and Dr. H. H. Holmes, America’s first modern serial killer and the man behind the notorious ‘Murder Castle’ built in the Fair’s shadow,” per the streaming service. Reeves was cast as Burnham in what would have been his first major American television role…
It was another week at the top for Smile, which earned an estimated $17.6 million. That brings its two-week domestic total to a little over $40 million. Worldwide, the horror film has collected $49.9 million.
Lyle Lyle Crocodile opened in second place with an estimated $11.5 million. The family film, featuring Shawn Mendes as the voice of the titular CGI reptile, fell short of expectations.
Filmmaker David O. Russell‘s star-studded comedy Amsterdam had an even more disappointing opening weekend, generating an estimated $6.5 million — about eight percent of the reported $80 million it cost to make — finishing third. The film, starring Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Taylor Swift, Rami Malek and Robert De Niro, had an equally dismal showing overseas, where it earned an estimated $10 million.
The Woman King grabbed fourth place, delivering an estimated $5.3 million and bringing its four-week tally to $54.1 million.
Rounding out the top five was Don’t Worry Darling, with an estimated $3.4 million haul in its third week of release. Its North American total gross now stands at $38 million.
(UVALDE, Texas) — The Uvalde, Texas, school district — still facing withering criticism over its police department’s failings both during the May 24 elementary school massacre and since — announced the suspension of the entire district police force on Friday.
Hours later, Uvalde school district Superintendent Hal Harrell announced he would be retiring. In a Facebook statement, he said retirement was “completely my choice” and that he’ll stay on through the year until a new superintendent is named. The transition will be discussed in a closed session of the school board on Monday.
Amid the police department suspension, the district said it’s requested more Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to be stationed on campuses and at extracurricular activities, adding, “We are confident that staff and student safety will not be compromised during this transition.”
The length of the school district police suspension is not clear.
Lt. Miguel Hernandez, who was tasked with leading the department in the fallout from the shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers, and Ken Mueller, the UCISD’s director of student services, were placed on administrative leave.
Hernandez acknowledged in a law enforcement communication in August that he’d received formal notification from DPS that an officer applying to Uvalde’s school police force was under investigation for her response at Robb Elementary.
Mueller has elected to retire, according to the school district.
“Officers currently employed will fill other roles in the district,” the school district said. According to the district’s website, that includes four officers and one security guard.
Victims’ families, led by Brett Cross, guardian of 10-year-old victim Uziyah Garcia, had been holding a round-the-clock vigil outside the school district headquarters calling for change. The families are now commending Friday’s police department announcement.
“We’ve gotten a little bit of accountability,” an emotional Cross told ABC News. “So, it’s a win, and we don’t get very many of those.”
Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter, Lexi, was killed at Robb, said the department suspension was “what we’ve been asking for — it’s more than we’ve been asking for.”
“They don’t know how to hire people, they don’t know how to vet officers,” she told ABC News. “They haven’t provided proper training.”
Gloria Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter, Jackie, was killed, called the department suspension “bittersweet.”
“It’s a win — a small win,” she told ABC News. “We’re not done.”
Berlinda Arreola, the grandmother of victim Amerie Jo Garza, added, “This is the perfect example of why we didn’t stop.”
“We are going to continue because there are other children that still go to school here. We have a lot of siblings of the deceased that go here,” she said. “We want to make sure our kids are secure and protected. And we want to make sure that the people protecting them are willing to protect them.”
The department suspension comes one day after the firing of Crimson Elizondo, the officer who was hired by Uvalde’s school district despite being under investigation for her conduct as a DPS trooper during the massacre.
Elizondo was the first DPS member to enter the hallway at Robb after the shooter gained entry. The trooper did not bring her rifle or vest into the school, according to the results of an internal review by DPS that was detailed to ABC News.
As a result of potential failure to follow standard procedures, the trooper was among seven DPS personnel whose conduct is now being investigated by the agency’s inspector general. The seven were suspended, however, by Elizondo resigning from DPS to work for the Uvalde schools she was no longer subject to any internal discipline or penalties. Her conduct — if found to be in violation of law or policy — would still be included in the final report from the DPS inspector general.
The school district said in Friday’s statement that “decisions concerning” the school district police department have been pending results of investigations from the Texas Police Chiefs Association and the private investigative firm JPPI Investigations, but “recent developments have uncovered additional concerns with department operations.”
Results of the JPPI investigation “will inform future personnel decisions” and the Texas Police Chiefs Association’s review “will guide the rebuilding of the department and the hiring of a new Chief of Police,” the statement said.
The school district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, was fired in August.
ABC News’ Patrick Linehan and Olivia Osteen contributed to this report.
Kanye West is turning to Twitter after getting restricted on Instagram.
Over the weekend the rapper, who now goes by Ye, responded to news of his restricted account by calling out Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta.
Sharing a snapshot of the two appearing to sing karaoke at a party, the Yeezy founder tweeted, “Look at this Mark How you gone kick me off instagram You used to be my n****.”
The post comes after Ye’s Instagram account was restricted for violating the platform’s rules and guidelines, Meta confirmed to BuzzFeed. It also comes after he made a now-deleted post that was labeled as anti-semitic on Friday.
Several celebrities have responded to the removed post, condemning the Donda rapper.
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis shared a screenshot of the deleted anti-semitic tweet and wrote, “The holiest day in Judaism was last week. Words matter. A threat to Jewish people ended once in a genocide. Your words hurt and incite violence. You are a father. Please stop.”
Comedian Sarah Silverman also spoke out about the “silence” from those outside of the Jewish community.
“Kanye threatened the Jews yesterday on twitter and it’s not even trending,” she tweeted. “Why do mostly only Jews speak up against Jewish hate? The silence is so loud.”
