Country singer Hardy is asking for prayers after his tour bus was involved in an accident.
“Following last night’s show, our tour bus was in an accident on our way home from Bristol,” he tweeted on Sunday afternoon. “There were just four of us, including myself, on the bus, however we were all treated for significant injuries.”
“Our friend, and bus driver, needs your prayers as he is still in the hospital,” Hardy continued. “His family is with him while he is being treated and we’re all pulling and praying for him.”
The “wait in the truck” singer added that he’s been released from the hospital but was “ordered by doctors to recover for the next few weeks which may cost us at a couple of shows.”
“My team and I will keep the fans updated on that as I rest in the coming days,” he shared.
“Please keep our road family in your prayers and I promise to keep you updated in the days to follow,” he concluded. “God bless our medics and local and state officials for their quick response and incredible service.”
Hardy and his team were traveling from Bristol, Tennessee to Nashville early Sunday when the incident occurred. His next scheduled appearance is on October 8 with Morgan Wallen. It’s unclear if that will still happen.
Scotty McCreery and his wife, Gabi, are gearing up to welcome their first baby — a boy — this fall, but it’s hard for Scotty to believe it’s almost time for his son to arrive.
“Baby is coming fast, I tell you,” the singer remarks. “It seems like just yesterday that Gabi showed me the pregnancy test, and she was like, ‘We’re having a kid.’”
The couple is busy setting up and preparing to welcome a child into their home. “We’ve got to build a nursery and get all this stuff ready,” Scotty continues, but says that he couldn’t be more excited for the challenges ahead.
“It’s going to be the biggest blessing,” he says. “I can’t wait to teach this kid things. Get him on the ball field, play him some music, teach him guitar. We’ve already got a little music stand for him to play with. So yeah, we’re pumped.”
But there’s one thing about the impending new arrival that excites Scotty even more than the prospect of becoming a dad. “I’m so excited to be a dad, but probably more so excited to see Gabi be a mom, because she is going to absolutely crush it,” he continues.
“Just how caring and thoughtful she is — she puts everybody’s needs in front of her own,” the singer notes. “She’s just going to be the best mom.”
Scotty and Gabi’s bundle of joy was originally due in early November, but after a growth scan this summer that showed the baby measuring ahead, their due date was moved up to October 31 — aka Halloween.
Last month, Talking Heads released new Dolby Atmos mixes of all eight of their studio album — Talking Heads: 77, More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, Remain in Light, Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures, True Stories and Naked.
Overseeing the project was Talking Heads guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison, who tells ABC Audio that all of the band’s other members — frontman David Byrne, drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth — okayed the mixes.
Harrison says his main collaborator on the Dolby Atmos mixes was engineer Eric Thorngren, who also worked on the original Little Creatures and True Stories sessions. Ed Stasium, who engineered Talking Heads’ 1977 debut album, also contributed to the updated mixes.
The Dolby Atmos format offers a three-dimensional audio experience, and Jerry notes that while listening to the mixes with high-tech Apple headphones is great, he prefers listening them on traditional speakers.
“[W]hen you’re in a really good room that has an Atmos system, then that’s really quite fabulous sounding,” he maintains.
Meanwhile, Harrison teamed up with ex-King Crimson singer/guitarist Adrian Belew and other musicians this past Thursday at Los Angeles’ Wiltern theater and Saturday at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival for their latest in a series of gigs celebrating the music of Talking Heads.
As previously reported, the shows were inspired by a 1980 concert Talking Heads played in Rome during the Remain in Light tour, when the band featured an expanded lineup that included Belew.
Harrison says he and Belew have plans to play more of these shows, but they probably won’t be until next year because of Adrian’s other touring commitments. Belew is taking part in the Celebrating David Bowie tribute trek, which runs from October 6 through November 13.
A new season of Dancing with the Stars is here, and former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay shared who she is rooting for and whether or not we’ll see her go for the Mirrorball Trophy one day.
Lindsay told ABC Audio that she is “obviously” rooting for Gabby Windey, who is shouldering the daunting task of continuing the Bachelorette winning streak started by Hannah Brown and continued by Kaitlyn Bristowe.
Personal bias aside, who are her top four picks?
“Jordin Sparks. I’m really rooting for her. Wayne Brady is hilarious. I’d like to see him [win],” she said. She’s also cheering for movie star Selma Blair:“The woman can do anything. She has such an inspiring story.”
Lindsay also praised TikToker Charli D’Amelio, adding, “She kills it. She is so fun to watch … Charli went out there and showed everyone she’s a dancer. Period.”
With all this DWTS talk, will Bachelor Nation see Lindsay step onto the ballroom one day?
“It is not happening anytime soon for me,” she laughed, adding Bristowe may have scared her away by being completely honest about all the injuries she suffered during her winning season. “She was in pain. She had bruises and she had to do ice baths and massages … When they come out victorious at the end, I understand the tears because it really is a blood, sweat and tears situation.”
“I had no idea how hard it is,” she continued. “It does seem like a really fun experience … So, I don’t know, never say never. I just can’t imagine it at the moment.”
Dancing with the Stars airs Monday at 8 p.m. only on Disney+.
Saturday Night Live took on Adam Levine and Armie Hammer‘s respective social media scandals on its season 47 opener.
Saturday’s host, Top Gun: Maverick star Miles Teller, played the host of a game show called “Send Something Normal,” which challenged the Maroon 5 frontman and Call Me by Your Name actor, played respectively by Mikey Day and James Austin Johnson, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, played by Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang as himself, to come up with a normal reply to a woman’s DM. An appropriate response would earn them $100 million.
Day’s Levine was up first, asked to reply to a young woman who DM’ed him to say she was a “huge fan” and loved his music.
“OK. Tough call. Can I see her most liked vacation photo?” Day quipped. “All right. Going to kick things off with a ‘Holy moly!’ But I got three more, though. ‘Holy moly! Holy crap! Your body is making my penis smile.’”
Day’s line was a response to Levine’s alleged Instagram messages to 23-year-old model Sumner Stroh, one of which read, “It is truly unreal how f****** hot you are. Like it blows my mind.”
Green, spoofing Hammer’s alleged DMs describing himself as “100% a cannibal,” and that he’d “want to eat” them, insisted, “I’ve done a lot of work on myself, and I’ve changed,” before replying, “I want to break open your bones and suck out the marrow.”
Last week, Levine addressed the allegations against him in an Instagram Story, saying he “used poor judgment” in speaking with anyone other than his wife in a flirtatious manner, and “crossed the line during a regrettable period in my life.”
Claims of Hammer’s text messages and patterns of allegedly violent behavior began to emerge in 2021. He has denied the accusations.
(WASHINGTON) — Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a member of Republican leadership in the upper chamber, said Sunday that he does not “condone violence” after Donald Trump lashed out at Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and suggested McConnell had a “death wish”– but Scott stopped short of condemning the former president.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social website last week, wrote that McConnell must have a “death wish” after supporting a continuing resolution to fund the federal government.
Trump went on to criticize McConnell’s wife in racist terms, writing that he should “seek help and advise [sic] from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!” Trump was referring to Elaine Chao, who is Taiwanese. Chao served as Trump’s transportation secretary until she resigned after Jan. 6
Scott, who leads the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, was asked for his opinion of Trump’s attack on McConnell during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I can never talk about and respond to why anybody else says what they said,” Scott said. “But here’s the way I look at it is I think what the president is saying is there’s been a lot of money spent over the last two years. We’ve got to make sure we don’t keep caving to Democrats, it’s causing unbelievable inflation and causing more and more debt.”
Scott then shrugged off the insult about Chao.
“As you know, the president likes to give people nicknames. You can ask him how he came up with the nickname,” Scott said. “I’m sure he has a nickname for me.”
“But here’s what I know: We’ve got to watch how we spend our money, we got to stop this inflation,” he said. “I don’t condone violence, and I hope no one else condones violence.”
Trump’s team has insisted in the wake of the former president’s “death wish” comment that it was meant in a political sense and was not advocating physical harm.
On CNN on Sunday, Scott was pressed on the racially inflammatory nature of how Trump singled out Chao. He replied that “It’s never ever OK to be a racist. I think you always have to be careful if you’re in the public eye with how you say things. You want to make sure you’re inclusive.”
Trump and McConnell, though close legislative allies through much of Trump’s administration, became estranged in the wake of Jan. 6.
While McConnell did not vote to convict Trump at his second impeachment, he said in a speech in February 2021 that Trump was “morally responsible” for the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump has since repeatedly denounced McConnell, which McConnell typically ignores in public. His office did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
(AURORA, Colo.) — Aurora, Colorado police fatally shot a male robbery suspect they said threatened them with a gun following a vehicle chase that ended by Denver International Airport on Saturday, authorities said at a news conference.
Denver’s chief of police, Ron Thomas, said two male suspects robbed a 7-Eleven store in Aurora around 2 a.m. Saturday morning before fleeing the scene in a small black SUV.
Around 5:00 a.m. Aurora police saw and began to pursue the vehicle toward Denver’s airport, executing an immobilization technique that caused the SUV to crash, Thomas said.
“We understand that a police pursuit, high-speed pursuits are inherently dangerous,” Thomas told reporters on Saturday. “And so, we want to end those as quickly as we possibly can when it’s safe to do so. I think those officers believed that this remote location was a safe location in order to perform that maneuver.”
Thomas said the suspect driving the car took out a long gun and threatened officers, prompting three Aurora cops to shoot the suspect.
Denver paramedics arrived and began to administer aid, but the suspect was pronounced dead on the scene. The second suspect was arrested.
An Aurora police officer did suffer injuries during the crash, a police official told ABC News. Although, no other officers were injured in the shooting.
Aurora and Denver’s police are conducting a joint investigation into the incident.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Marco Rubio and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell on Sunday detailed the destruction Ian wreaked in Florida as Rubio said there’s no “comparison” between the deadly hurricane and past storms.
“I don’t think it has a comparison, not in Florida,” Rubio, R-Fla., told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “Fort Myers Beach no longer exists. It’ll have to be rebuilt. It’ll be something different. It was a slice of old Florida that you can’t recapture.”
“There is a lot of devastation. Significant damage in the point of impact on the west coast of Florida,” Criswell added.
Ian made landfall last week in West Florida before sweeping across the middle and upper regions of the state, leaving leveled homes and significant flooding in its wake. Search-and-rescue operations are ongoing, but the death toll in Florida stood at 72 as of Sunday morning, according to local officials.
There have also been four deaths in North Carolina, where Ian hit after passing through Florida, and several deaths in Cuba, which was hit before Florida.
Both Rubio and Criswell emphasized on “This Week” that federal officials have been working hand-in-glove with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“I spent the whole day with Gov. DeSantis on Friday and wanted to really hear what his concerns were and what resources he might need to help support this,” Criswell told Karl. “I committed to him that we would continue to bring in resources to meet the needs, not just for this response and the stabilization but as they go into the recovery efforts.”
Asked by Karl if the forecast models were off in projecting Ian’s path or if local officials should have called for evacuations sooner, Criswell said the hurricane had been “fairly unpredictable in the days leading up to landfall,” when Ian quickly became the deadliest hurricane in the state in 60 years.
“This is going to be a long road to recovery,” Criswell acknowledged. She added: “We are accounting for everybody that was in the storm’s path and that we go through every home to make sure that we don’t leave anybody behind.”
Criswell, a former emergency management chief of New York City, was confirmed as FEMA administrator last year. She took over an agency that disburses billions in relief across the country but which has also faced scrutiny and criticism over its work.
“FEMA has — they’ve all been great,” Rubio said on Sunday. “The federal response from day one is very positive … and we’re grateful for that.”
Karl pressed Rubio multiple times on a 2013 vote he cast against recovery funds for Hurricane Sandy, with Rubio arguing the Sandy relief included unrelated spending.
Karl asked if Rubio would also insist disaster money for his state be voted on without any non-emergency additions — and, if so, if he was then prepared to vote against such funding if it was part of a larger package.
“What we’re going to ask for Florida is what we supported for every other state in the country that’s been affected by natural disasters, and that’s emergency relief designed to be sent immediately to help the people affected now,” Rubio said.
Karl asked Criswell about FEMA’s work in Puerto Rico, which was hit by Hurricane Fiona last month. Criswell noted that 90% of people on the island have power again since the storm. “We have not stopped our response efforts and our recovery efforts,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Russian President Vladimir Putin now faces an “irreversible” quagmire amid the country’s land grab in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, retired Army general and former CIA chief David Petraeus said Sunday.
Putin “is losing” despite “significant” but “desperate” moves in the war that began in late February, Petraeus told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
“President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and Ukraine have mobilized vastly better than has Russia,” Petraeus said. “Ukraine has recruited, trained, equipped, organized and employed force incomparably better than Russia has.”
Regardless of Putin’s bravado, Petraeus said, “No amount of annexation, no amount of even veiled nuclear threats can get him out of this situation.”
Asked by Karl if Russia could win in its conflict with Ukraine, Petraeus said he did not see how: “They cannot. There is nothing he [Putin] can do at this point.”
On Friday, Putin said he was “forever” annexing four regions of Ukraine — a move denounced by Ukraine, the U.S. and other countries — and, in late September, the Russian leader said he was calling up some 300,000 reservists to bolster the war effort, triggering protests across his country.
In a rare acknowledgment Thursday, Putin admitted “mistakes” in how the mobilization was carried out. But he argued again in a speech Friday that the invasion was crucial to preserving Russia against what he described as “the enemy” in the West.
Meanwhile Ukrainian forces, buttressed by billions in weapons and funding from the U.S. and European allies, have made steady territorial gains since a counteroffensive that started last month.
“He’s going to continue to lose on the battlefield,” Petraeus said of Putin, pointing to Russia’s recent retreat from a supply hub city in one of the annexed regions. Mounting sanctions are another complication, Petraeus said.
Putin’s Friday speech, in which he announced the annexation of parts of Ukraine, was designed to undercut Europe’s commitment to challenging Russia, which is a major energy supplier on the continent, Petraeus said.
“Europe’s going to have a tough winter,” Petraeus said. “There’s going to be very reduced flow of natural gas, but they’ll get through it and I don’t think they’ll crack on the issue of support for Ukraine.”
“Negotiations, as President Zelenskyy has said, will be the ultimate end,” Petraeus said — though an imminent diplomatic outcome might be unlikely, as Zelenskyy signaled on Friday that Ukraine would only agree to talks “with another president of Russia.”
“It can still get worse for Putin and for Russia. And even the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield won’t change this at all,” Petraeus said.
Still, he said the nuclear threat must be taken “seriously.”
Karl asked him if the use of such weapons would require the U.S. to directly intervene in the conflict with NATO.
Petraeus said a response might see the U.S. and its NATO allies “take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield” in Ukraine, the contested region of Crimea that Russia annexed in 2014 and ships in the Black Sea.
“It cannot go unanswered. But it doesn’t expand — it’s not nuclear for nuclear. You don’t want to get into a nuclear escalation here,” Petraeus said. “But you have to show that this cannot be accepted in any way.”
(STOCKTON, Calif.) — Five unprovoked murders in the past several months appear to be the work of one person, according to the Stockton, California, Police Department.
Authorities are searching for a person of interest tied to the five slayings, the first of which occurred on July 8. All of the victims were men and all were alone at the time they were fatally shot, police said.
The killings all happened at night or in the early morning hours.
Police released only a few details about the string of murders and when they happened: a 35-year-old man fatally shot at 12:31 a.m. on July 8; a 43-year-old man fatally shot at 9:49 p.m. on Aug. 11; a 21-year-old man fatally shot at 6:41 a.m. on Aug. 30; a 52-year-old man fatally shot at 4:27 a.m. on Sept. 21; and a 54-year-old man fatally shot at 1:53 a.m. on Sept. 27.
Stockton police told ABC News that all of the victims were ambushed, none were robbed and none were drug- or gang-related. Police also told ABC News that they have physical evidence linking the five crime scenes together.
None of the victims were publicly identified by police, but the family of the most recent victim identified him as Lorenzo Lopez, according to Sacramento ABC affiliate KXTV.
“He was just a person who was out here at the wrong place at the wrong time at the wrong circumstance,” his brother Jerry Lopez told KXTV. “It’s hard to process that this has happened. I mean, me and my brother have been like twins. We were a year a part so we were pretty close.”
The city of Stockton said it was putting forward a $75,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the investigation. Stockton Crime Stoppers is posting an additional $10,000 reward.
The day after Lopez’s killing, Stockton police had said at a press conference they were not sure if the string of killings were related.
“[We’re] still looking at it from a random point of view, but we do see some similarities,” Police Chief Stanley McFadden said Wednesday. “We have been provided absolutely zero evidence that leads us to believe that one individual is running rampant in the city of Stockton killing people.”
But that changed two days later when the department tied the five killings together and released an image of a person of interest.
ABC News’ Caroline Guthrie contributed to this report.
