Serena Williams wins 1st round US Open match ahead of retirement

Serena Williams wins 1st round US Open match ahead of retirement
Serena Williams wins 1st round US Open match ahead of retirement
Frey/TPN/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — All eyes were on Serena Williams as the tennis superstar made an electric first-round appearance in her final U.S. Open appearance before retirement.

Williams defeated 80th-ranked Danka Kovinic of Montenegro on center court in two sets, 6-3, 6-3.

Williams, 40, has been the talk of the tournament after she announced earlier this month in a personal essay for Vogue that her time as a pro was coming to a close.

Williams defeated Martina Hingis in the U.S. Open final to win her first major title in 1999 at the age of 17. Williams defeated five future Hall of Famers, including Hingis, to win that title.

In her 27 years, Williams has notched 23 major singles titles — the most in the Open Era for men or women — as well as 14 in doubles, two more in mixed doubles and four Olympic gold medals. Her 73 singles titles overall is fifth all time among women. Margaret Court holds the all-time majors record with 24. Her career began in 1960, and professional players were not allowed to compete until 1968, though she also won 11 majors in the Open Era.

Rennae Stubbs, her latest coach, longtime competitor, friend and six-time grand slam doubles winner, told “Good Morning America” on Monday that her goal was “to just keep her happy.”

“She looks great. She’s been practicing really, really hard,” Stubbs said leading up to the opening match. “One of the things I emphasized with her when I did start working with her was, ‘You got to play more sets against other players.’ She hasn’t played many matches in the last two years and had the injury at Wimbledon last year, therefore wasn’t sure if she was going to come back. And I think she got the bug to finish the way she wanted to finish, which was on her terms. And she’s done that now.”

Ticket sales skyrocketed in the days after Williams announced she would be stepping away from tennis following the U.S. Open — even before fans knew which night she would be playing.

Williams has been beset by injuries in recent years and hasn’t played 10 tournaments in a year since 2015. In the last two years, she has lost to an opponent ranked No. 100 or worse three times. She sat out the 2021 U.S. Open as well as the first two majors in 2022. She hasn’t played in a major final since 2019.

Williams is currently ranked 410th in the world and lost in the first round of Wimbledon in July.

She won her 23rd grand slam title — besting Steffi Graf’s 22 titles — in January 2017 when she was pregnant with daughter, Alexis Olympia. She and Olympia wore matching Nike outfits Monday night.

Stubbs said she “didn’t have the success that we’re used to her having” in 2022 and noted that a lack of matches “really hurts” her play.

“Through the years she’s always played so many matches, she hadn’t had to play a lot of practice sets or play with any other players, so the emphasis on her over the last couple weeks is, ‘Let’s play some sets against great players.’ At least you get that match practice, in practice, and she’s done that and embraced it. So she’s been really, really good.”

Ultimately, Stubbs said “this is going to be a human moment for her tonight.”

“To know the enormity of this match, her last ever match possibly — or if she wins how excited everyone’s going to be to see her play another match at the U.S. Open. The crowd is going to be amazing. You’re not human if you don’t feel the emotions,” Stubbs said. “There’s no doubt she will be very nervous going on the court — anxiety level will be high because she always has [high] expectations.”

Serena and her sister Venus were granted a wild card entry into the women’s doubles tournament in Queens, New York — a doubles title she’s won twice with her sister. The women’s doubles tournament opens up on Aug. 31 with the Williams sisters playing Czech players Linda Noskova and Lucie Hradecka in the first round.

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Colin Kaepernick and Nessa Diab announce birth of their first child

Colin Kaepernick and Nessa Diab announce birth of their first child
Colin Kaepernick and Nessa Diab announce birth of their first child
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Colin Kaepernick is now a first-time father.

His longtime girlfriend, Nessa Diab, made the announcement Sunday on Instagram.

“I thought long and hard about sharing our life-changing news today,” she commented on a photo of her, Kaepernick and their baby.

“I decided to do so because today is the first day in a few weeks where I stepped out for work with a new life title – MOM!” the radio personality continued. “Colin and I welcomed our amazing baby to the world a few weeks ago, and we are over the moon with our growing family.”

Diab praised the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, calling him “the most amazing dad.” She added, “And I’m soooo grateful that he is by our side for every moment of this journey.”

Following her social media post, Diab attended Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Several stars offered their congratulations to the couple, including Mariah Carey, who wrote, “Love you so much!!”

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First lady Jill Biden recovers from rebound COVID-19 case, will return to Washington

First lady Jill Biden recovers from rebound COVID-19 case, will return to Washington
First lady Jill Biden recovers from rebound COVID-19 case, will return to Washington
ABC News

(WASHINGTON) — First lady Jill Biden has recovered from a “rebound” case of COVID-19 and will return to Washington nearly a week after again testing positive for the virus, her office said.

Biden, who has been isolating in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, has now tested negative, her spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement. She plans to travel back to the capital on Tuesday.

The first lady — who first tested positive on Aug. 15 — then came out of her first isolation period from that infection in South Carolina on Aug. 21.

She subsequently tested positive for a rebound case last week after being treated with the antiviral Paxlovid.

President Biden tested separately negative for COVID-19 last Wednesday, according to the White House.

“The First Lady has experienced no reemergence of symptoms, and will remain in Delaware where she has reinitiated isolation procedures,” a spokeswoman said in a statement on Wednesday. “The White House Medical Unit has conducted contact tracing and close contacts have been notified.”

 

ABC News’ Molly Nagle, Arielle Mitropoulos and Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.

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Feds’ free COVID-19 test program to halt this week due to lack of funding

Feds’ free COVID-19 test program to halt this week due to lack of funding
Feds’ free COVID-19 test program to halt this week due to lack of funding
Bloomberg via Getty Images/FILE

(WASHINGTON) — With COVID-19 funding drying up and no fresh cash infusion from Congress, the Biden administration says it will suspend its offer of free at-home rapid tests through COVID.gov.

The program will be put on pause later this week.

“Ordering through this program will be suspended on Friday, September 2, because Congress hasn’t provided additional funding to replenish the nation’s stockpile of tests,” a banner alert on the federal website said. The U.S. Postal Service’s free test page also noted the impending halt to the program.

A senior administration official told ABC that the move to pause the program is “to preserve our limited remaining supply” — particularly, to have a reserve in case a potential new wave of the virus sweeps the country in the coming months — “so that we can ensure we have a limited supply of tests available in the fall, when we might face a new rise in infections and more acute need.”

“The administration has been clear about our urgent COVID-19 response funding needs. We have warned that congressional inaction would force unacceptable trade-offs and harm our overall COVID-19 preparedness and response — and that the consequences would likely worsen over time,” the senior administration official said.

“We were also clear that failing to provide resources to be prepared would mean that if a surge were to come later, the cost to the American taxpayer would be even higher. Unfortunately, because of the limited funding we have to work with, we have had to make impossible choices about which tools and programs to invest in — and which ones we must downsize, pause or end altogether,” the official said.

Of the 1 billion free tests President Joe Biden pledged to secure at the beginning of this year, so far more than 600 million tests have been distributed through COVID.gov/tests, the senior administration official said, offering “every household” the “opportunity” to get a total of 16 tests in the three rounds of orders that the government opened up to the public.

The senior official added that the administration “will continue to work within its limited existing resources to secure as many additional tests as we can.”

“Congress hasn’t provided the COVID funding we need to replenish the nation’s stockpiles of tests, as simple as that,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. “This is an action we’ve been forced to take that will help preserve our limited remaining supply.”

Orders through the program will cease on Friday.

Meanwhile, tests will still be distributed at 15,000 federally supported, community-based sites such as local pharmacies and libraries. Americans with eligible insurance can also still be reimbursed for at-home tests through their private health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, the administration official said.

“In addition, the administration continues to ensure equitable access to tests through a number of programs, including free tests distributed directly to long-term care facilities, schools, child care and early learning centers, community health centers and food banks,” the senior official said.

“If Congress provides funding, we will expeditiously resume distribution of free tests through [COVID.gov/tests],” the official said. “Until then, we believe reserving the remaining tests for distribution later this year is the best course.”

Over the course of the spring, lawmakers failed to secure an additional $10 billion in funding for the program.

Then-press secretary Jen Psaki said in April, “The program that reimbursed doctors, pharmacists and other providers for vaccinating the uninsured had to end today due to a lack of funds. America’s supply of monoclonal antibodies that are effective at keeping people out of the hospital will run out as soon as late May. Our test manufacturing capacity will begin ramping down at the end of June,” adding that the failed Senate vote to secure additional funding at the time was “a step backward for our ability to respond to this virus.”

Democrats have vowed to continue the fight for additional funding this fall. The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Pat Leahy of Vermont, introduced a $21 billion emergency funding bill in late July and has vowed — along with panel co-authors Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Chris Coons, D-Del. — to get it passed this year.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Trish Turner contributed to this report.

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Metallica schedules 2022 Helping Hands charity concert

Metallica schedules 2022 Helping Hands charity concert
Metallica schedules 2022 Helping Hands charity concert
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

Metallica‘s Helping Hands concert is coming back.

The third edition of the charity event, which benefits the metal legends’ All Within My Hands Foundation, will take place December 16 in Los Angeles.

“It has been a few years since we connected in person for this unique event, so we want to get on your calendar now!” Metallica says. “We’re excited to share all the amazing things the Foundation has accomplished and we are inspired to look toward the future. Of course, we’ll cap it all off with a full night of live music!”

Helping Hands first launched in 2018. The second concert took place in late 2020 and streamed online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both shows featured rare acoustic Metallica sets.

More details about Helping Hands 2022 will be announced shortly. Stay tuned to Metallica.com for all info.

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Five Finger Death Punch notches eighth-straight top 10 ’Billboard’ 200 album

Five Finger Death Punch notches eighth-straight top 10 ’Billboard’ 200 album
Five Finger Death Punch notches eighth-straight top 10 ’Billboard’ 200 album
Better Noise Music

Five Finger Death Punch‘s streak of consecutive top-10 albums on the Billboard 200 is still intact.

The group’s latest effort, AfterLife, debuts this week at #10 on the chart with about 29,000 equivalent album units, 22,000 of which were traditional album sales. All of FFDP’s previous seven albums have reached the top 10 on the Billboard 200, dating back to their 2009 sophomore effort, War Is the Answer.

In fact, the only Death Punch album to not hit the Billboard 200 top 10 is their 2007 debut, The Way of the Fist.

AfterLife, the ninth Five Finger Death Punch album, was released August 19. It includes the singles “AfterLife” and “Times Like These.”

Five Finger Death Punch is currently touring in support of AfterLife, headlining a bill including Megadeth, The Hu and Fire from the Gods. They’ll team up with country star Brantley Gilbert for another live run in November.

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Coldplay wants your Chris Martin photo for new poster

Coldplay wants your Chris Martin photo for new poster
Coldplay wants your Chris Martin photo for new poster
Euan Cherry/Getty Images

Your photo of Chris Martin could end up gracing the walls of a Coldplay fan’s house.

The “Fix You” outfit is looking for a “great live close-up photo” of Martin taken by fans from the crowd during the band’s Music of the Spheres world tour. The best one will be chosen to become a new poster.

Those interested in submitting can email their photo to photos@coldplay.com.

Coldplay has been touring throughout the year in support of Music of the Spheres, which dropped last October. The U.S. leg took place in May and June.

The global outing is set to continue September 10 at Brazil’s Rock in Rio festival.

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Elton John says he’ll do a record like “Cold Heart” or “Hold Me Closer” “every year”

Elton John says he’ll do a record like “Cold Heart” or “Hold Me Closer” “every year”
Elton John says he’ll do a record like “Cold Heart” or “Hold Me Closer” “every year”
Interscope

Last year, Elton John scored a global hit with Dua Lipa with “Cold Heart” — a mashup of four of his old songs. Now, he’s poised to have another one with “Hold Me Closer,” a mashup of three of his old songs featuring Britney Spears. And Elton promises that the hits will keep on coming.

“I want to do one every year for a fun, happy summer record,” Elton tells The Guardian newspaper. He certainly has enough old songs to do it, and there are enough young artists who’d probably jump at the chance.

“I’m Uncle Elton,” says the Rocket Man, who loves to advise young musicians who may be struggling with the pressures of fame. In Britney’s case, Elton says of her journey to escape her 13-year conservatorship, “You forget she was the biggest star in the whole world at that time. And to see what happened to her makes me so angry. What happened to her shouldn’t have happened to anybody.”

Now that the song is on its way to being a hit, Elton says, “I’m just crossing my fingers that this will restore her confidence in herself to get back into the studio, make more records, and realize that she is bloody good.”

According to the song’s producer, Andrew Watt, Britney was plenty confident when she came to his L.A. studio to record her vocals. “She was so prepared…she’s so good at knowing when she got the right take. She took complete control,” he raves, noting, “She’s an expert in music to make you dance…she’s so pro.”

Britney’s attorney, Mathew Rosengart, who extracted her from her conservatorship, tells ABC News in a statement, “No one should be surprised that her first [post-conservatorship] foray is a smash success…Britney is a brilliant artist and iconic woman.”

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19-year-old man arrested in deadly random shooting rampage in Detroit

19-year-old man arrested in deadly random shooting rampage in Detroit
19-year-old man arrested in deadly random shooting rampage in Detroit
Detroit Police Department via Twitter

(DETROIT) — Using research and statistics, experts examine America’s history with guns, the real-life impacts of gun violence and what can be done going forward to mitigate the problem.

A 19-year-old man with no apparent criminal history was arrested for allegedly killing three people and wounding a fourth in a series of random, unprovoked shootings in Detroit on Sunday, police said during a news conference Monday.

The suspect, whose name has not been released, was arrested roughly 12 hours after allegedly committing the last shooting when someone close to him recognized him in a surveillance photo police officials released during a search for him and contacted authorities, officials said.

“Yesterday, I made a plea to family and friends of the shooter to turn him in. It didn’t seem likely that he could be taken into custody without incident,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said during Monday’s news conference. “But, in fact, somebody close to him did respond. It was that community input that allowed the police officers to take this individual into custody without any further violence.”

Police Chief James White said investigators are probing the suspect’s movements prior to his arrests to determine if he targeted anyone else.

“I will tell you that it’s a 19-year-old and we don’t see any criminal history at this time, and we have some indication that there is mental illness,” White said.

The random shootings all occurred on the west side of Detroit in the span of 2 hours and 25 minutes Sunday morning.

The sole survivor of the rampage, an 80-year-old man, described being shot while out walking his dog.

An all-hands-on-deck search involving multiple law enforcement agencies — including the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Department of Homeland Security — took place Sunday afternoon after police determined the same gun was used in all four shootings, authorities said. While ATF did not respond physically to the scene, ABC News was told the agency is assisting with an urgent trace on the weapons and working on analyzing the shell casings.

White said a 9mm handgun was recovered from a residence where the assailant was arrested. He said ballistic tests done immediately on the firearm confirmed suspicions from shell casings collected at each crime scene that it was used in all of the shootings.

When asked whether detectives have determined a motive for the rampage, White said, “Obviously, there is nothing that should motivate you to do something this tragic.”

Commander Michael McGinnis of the Detroit Police Department laid out a timeline of the shootings, saying the first occurred at 4:45 a.m. when a 28-year-old man was approached by the suspect and shot.

McGinnis said the shooting was unprovoked and that the suspect walked away briefly before returning and shooting the victim several more times, killing him.

McGinnis noted that no one called 911 to report the first shooting, a detail both White and Duggan said they found troubling.

“I know from the time I spent with the officers yesterday, they’re going to be haunted for a long time. They very likely could have prevented two and probably three tragedies had they had an immediate notice,” Duggan said.

Detroit does not have a ShotSpotter gunfire detection system like many large cities, which immediately notifies police of the location of gunshots, Duggan and White said.

White added, “What we don’t want to happen is gunshots to become commonplace in our community. We don’t want to become desensitized to someone shooting in our community. There should never be a condition ever that someone uses a gun in our community that’s unaccounted for.”

McGinnis said the second shooting happened 30 minutes after the first shooting. In that episode, a 911 caller reported that a woman in her 40s was lying on a sidewalk with multiple gunshot wounds. He said the victim was found three blocks from the first shooting.

The victim, who died at the scene, has yet to be identified, McGinnis said.

McGinnis said that as officers were investigating the second shooting, they responded to the sound of gunshots nearby and found another woman fatally shot. He said the woman had been waiting for a bus when the suspect walked by her, returned and shot her without provocation.

He said the suspect walked away, but returned and shot the woman again.

At 7:10 a.m., an 80-year-old man out walking his dog was confronted by the suspect, who allegedly shot him and his dog in yet another unprovoked attack. The victim suffered a bullet wound to the leg, and neighbors who heard the gunshots likely saved the man’s life by coming to his aid and putting a tourniquet on his leg and getting him to a hospital immediately, McGinnis said.

The names of the victims were not immediately released.

White said the suspect did not rob or attempt to rob any of the victims.

White said technology played a key role in cracking the case, explaining that it allowed investigators to quickly analyze shell casings from each of the crime scenes and determine that the same gun was used in all four shootings.

“If someone uses a weapon in our community, we’re going to use every resource we have to lock you up and we make no apologies about that,” White said. “Enough is enough. This is unacceptable and it needs to stop.”

ABC News’ Alex Stone contributed to this report.

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TSA rolls out new program at LAX to better detect drones around airports

TSA rolls out new program at LAX to better detect drones around airports
TSA rolls out new program at LAX to better detect drones around airports
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

(LOS ANGELES) — After drone sightings and even reports of a man flying in a jetpack around Los Angeles International Airport, the federal government is rolling out new tech that could better detect objects entering restricted airspace.

The project, called the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Bed Program, is the second of its kind nationwide and will begin testing technology designed to detect, track and identify drones entering the airspace of LAX.

“If a drone was to enter the space as you see with the aircraft taking off and landing, and a pilot having to make a quick decision and divert from that flight path that he or she is on — that could be a huge issue for both the safety of the passengers, the safety of the folks on the ground, it just creates all types of challenges,” Keith Jefferies, the federal security director for the Transportation Security Administration at LAX, told ABC-owned station KABC.

Since 2021, TSA has reported 90 visual sightings of drones and 5,200 technical detections within three miles of the perimeter at LAX. This year alone there have been approximately 38 drones visually detected at the airport – including a drone that was reported within 700 feet of an aircraft just before Super Bowl LVI.

Moreover, several pilots landing at LAX have reported sightings of a man flying at high altitudes around aircraft at the airport. While law enforcement later said the sightings could have been a life-sized balloon, the agency believes the new tech would be able to detect such objects.

The agency noted that the data collected at LAX will help expand the program to other airports as well as raise awareness of the risks of encroaching on restricted airspace.

“One of the main objectives of the TSA UAS Test Bed Program is to continuously assess relevant technologies and keep pace with the ever-evolving capabilities within the UAS community,” TSA’s UAS Capability Manager Jim Bamberger said. “Working together with our federal, state and local partners and the intelligence community, we are leveraging our collective technical capabilities to prevent disruptions within the transportation sector.”

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