Courtesy of Lauren Monroe; Larry Marano/Getty Images
Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen is featured on a new song by his wife, singer-songwriter Lauren Monroe. “Void of Course” was released Friday as an advance track from her forthcoming studio album, Messages from Aphrodite.
Allen is part of a two-drum attack on the tune, along with Beth Goodfellow, who has also worked with such artists as Iron & Wine and Boygenius. The track also features cellist/upright bassist Steve Uccello and Larkin Poe guitarist Tyler Bryant.
Explaining the meaning behind “Void of Course,” which was inspired by an astrological term, Lauren says, “This song is an expression of anger, fear, desperation and knowing what can heal you but choosing the opposite. A pattern of our soul choosing self-love but not being strong enough to stay the course alone.”
“Void of Course” is available now via digital formats, while an official music video for the tune will premiere soon.
Messages from Aphrodite will be released on September 9 and can be preordered now. Allen contributes to multiple tracks on the album, while longtime Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone plays on the recently issued advance track “Kiss Me Now.”
Meanwhile,Lauren recently announced a series of five West Coast shows to promote the album, running from a September 7 concert in Seattle through a September 22 concert in Venice, California. Allen will join his wife to perform at three of the shows — on September 19 in Mill Valley, California; September 22 in La Jolla, California; and at the September 25 gig in Venice.
Allen is currently on the road with Def Leppard on The Stadium Tour, which also features Mötley Crüe, Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. The trek runs through a September 9 show in Las Vegas.
(NEW YORK) — Alex Jones has been ordered to pay more than $45 million in punitive damages to Sandy Hook parents, a Texas jury found on Friday.
The development comes a day after the jury ordered Jones to pay them $4.1 million in compensatory damages.
The conspiracy theorist and Infowars founder was successfully sued by the parents of a 6-year-old boy who was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre after he claimed that the shooting — where 20 children and six adults were killed — was a hoax, a claim he said he now thinks is “100% real.”
The parents sued Jones for $150 million.
The punitive damages total $45.2 million, with total damages awarded amounting to $49.3 million.
A lawyer representing the Sandy Hook families had said in court on Thursday that he intends to hand over two years’ worth of Jones’ text messages to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, after they were inadvertently provided to him by Jones’ lawyers.
“I’ve been asked to turn them over. I certainly intend to do that unless you tell me not to,” Mark Bankston told the judge, saying he’s been asked by the Jan. 6 committee to turn them over.
A source familiar with the matter also told ABC News that the committee and Bankston have been in touch about receiving the messages.
Bankston revealed Wednesday that Jones’ lawyers mistakenly sent him two years’ worth of text messages.
Bankston referenced “intimate messages with Roger Stone” that he said were not “confidential” or “trade secrets.” He said that “various federal agencies and law enforcement” contacted him about the information.
“There has been no protection ever asserted over these documents,” Bankston said.
Cases involving Jones will go before two different judges in Connecticut next week, as more Sandy Hook families seek to hold him accountable for the lies he told about the 2012 massacre being a hoax staged by actors.
A federal bankruptcy court judge in Bridgeport agreed to hold an expedited hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion to proceed against Jones while his company, Free Speech Systems, goes through bankruptcy.
The plaintiffs, immediate family members of children and educators killed in the 2012 massacre as well as one first responder, successfully sued Jones for defamation and are now seeking to hold him financially liable for his comments on the shooting.
The damages phase was scheduled to begin Sept. 6, when 15 plaintiffs have said they would testify about the extreme emotional distress they suffered as a result of Jones’ claims about them.
The presentation of evidence in the trial on damages is estimated to take three to four weeks. The families have not specified an amount they are seeking.
The hearing is scheduled for Aug. 10 at 2 p.m.
Earlier that same day, a Connecticut trial judge will also hold a hearing on the conduct of Jones’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, who has been accused of violating confidentiality rules by sharing the medical and psychiatric records of the Sandy Hook families with Jones’ Texas attorney.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Matthew Fuhrman contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — An adult at an Illinois day care center has tested positive for monkeypox, and a number of children may have been exposed to the virus, health officials in Illinois announced on Friday.
At this time, officials did not disclose the number of children that may have been exposed to the virus. Screening of children and staff from the day care, which is located in the Rantoul area of Illinois, near Champaign, is currently underway, and no additional cases have been discovered as of yet.
“All available state, local and federal resources are being deployed to assist families,” state officials said during a press conference on Friday afternoon. “Pediatricians are on site, as we speak, to screen children for cases and they’re mobile testing and vaccines for their families. Health officials will continue to stay in contact with families and provide information and resources in the coming days.”
The day care has been cleaned, and it is still open, officials said.
“The people who have been exposed, potentially, do not need to be in quarantine, so they are being screened and assessed. Anyone with even a tiny little suspicion, we will put them in isolation pending any type of results, but they have the guidance for cleaning and they have done that probably a lot more than is even necessary,” officials said.
The individual with monkeypox “also works in a home health care,” and health officials have been in contact with the one client who has been impacted.
“The person with monkeypox is in isolation, is being medically monitored, and is doing well,” officials added.
The disease is typically spread through prolonged skin-to-skin contact with infected people’s lesions or bodily fluids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to lesions, which can appear like pimples or blisters, the most common symptoms associated with monkeypox are swollen lymph nodes, fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches.
Officials reported that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker had been in touch with the White House, and at the state’s request, “the Food and Drug Administration has authorized use of the vaccine for anyone under 18, without jumping through the normal hoops in this process.”
“That means that anyone with their guardian’s approval will be vaccinated today,” officials said.
ABC News has reached out to the FDA and the White House for clarity on whether a formal authorization has been made for children to receive the JYNNEOS vaccine.
On Tuesday, the FDA confirmed to ABC News that “numerous” children have been granted access through a special permission process that operates on a case-by-case basis.
If a doctor decides a person under 18 was exposed to monkeypox and the benefit of the vaccine is greater than any potential risk, they can submit a request to the FDA. In a statement, the FDA said numerous such requests have been granted, but did not say exactly how many.
At this time, the majority of monkeypox cases confirmed domestically and globally in the current outbreak have been detected in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men. However, health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus does not discriminate, and anyone exposed to monkeypox can contract the virus.
At least five children in the U.S. have now positive for monkeypox, according to state and local officials from across the country.
On Thursday, the Biden administration declared the current monkeypox outbreak to be a public health emergency in the U.S.
Globally, more than 28,000 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed across 88 countries, including 7,500 cases reported domestically.
(NESCOPECK, Pa.) — Ten people are dead, including three children, after an intense fire tore through a home in central Pennsylvania on Friday, authorities said.
Crews responding to the early morning fire in Nescopeck could not initially get inside the two-story home due to the flames and heat, according to Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Derek Felsman.
Three bodies were initially recovered in the fire, which was reported shortly after 2:30 a.m., according to police.
State police confirmed Friday evening that 10 bodies have been found dead in the home. The victims ranged in age from 5 to 79, police said. They included a 7-year-old girl and two boys, ages 5 and 6. Their names were not released.
The adult victims were identified by state police as Dale Baker, 19; Star Baker, 22; David Daubert, Sr., 79; Brian Daubert, 42; Shannon Daubert, 45; Laura Daubert, 47; and Marian Slusser, 54.
Three men were able to make it out of the home safely, police said.
Nescopeck volunteer firefighter Harold Baker, one of the first on scene, said 14 people were in the home, many of them his family members. He said he had not heard from 10 of them and expected that he lost his son and daughter as well as several grandchildren and his father-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law.
“When we came, pulled up, the whole place was fully involved,” Baker told Scranton ABC affiliate WNEP. “We tried to get into them; there wasn’t no way we could get into them.”
Mike Swank, who lives across the street from the home, told WNEP that he was watching TV when he heard a “pop” outside. When he looked out the window he saw the front porch of the house “almost totally engulfed.”
“There was a gentleman out here running around in the street and he was yelling, really upset, saying that not everybody made it out,” he told the station.
The Red Cross is on scene to provide grief counseling and other support.
The investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.
ABC News’ Leo Mayorga contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Resurrection, a new psychological thriller starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth, is in theaters now. Directed by Andrew Semans, it follows a mother who is forced to confront her past. Roth tells ABC Audio what drew him to the project.
“I was traveling with my son. We were actually in France at the time,” he recalls. “And I read it and he was sitting across the way from me while I was doing my reading and my jaw sort of hit the floor. I was like what is this? And he read it and went, ‘Oh, you’re doing this.'”
The 61-year-old actor joined the cast after filming began, which completely changed his approach to the project, he thinks, for the better.
“Normally, you’d give yourself three weeks to sort of get your head around something…I didn’t really have any of that time,” he explains. “So maybe it was better for it in a way. It just, you know concentrate on having the conversations with Rebecca. Don’t think outside the box, just think in the moment.”
And Roth says it was made all the more easier by Hall, whom he believes has “some serious chops as an actor.”
“You actually feel that you’ve gotta bring your game to step up to her,” he continues. “One of the things that you don’t see on camera, but it happens immediately when [Semans] said cut was the amount of laughter that was going on. She is really funny.”
Madonna is gearing up for the August 19 physical release of her compilation album Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones and celebrated its impending arrival with a new, profane twist on “Material Girl.” She partnered with rapper Saucy Santanato remix his viral track based off her 1984 hit for “Material Gworrllllllll!”
The track is available now via streaming services. A music video for “Material Gworrllllllll!” will premiere this Monday, August 8.
In other news, Madonna will appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday, August 10, to talk about her new compilation album. The 50-track physical version of the record will feature all of Madonna’s #1 songs on the dance charts.
Willow Smith is sharing her thoughts on the Oscars slap involving her father, Will Smith, and fellow Hollywood star Chris Rock. In an interview with Billboard, she revealed she wasn’t as bothered as the rest of the world when the incident occurred at the 2022 Academy Awards. In fact, when media scrutiny followed, she said it didn’t “rock me as much as my own internal demons.”
In Willow’s eyes, the slap simply showed that her father was being human — a right that is not always afforded to celebrities, like her entire family.
“I see my whole family as being human, and I love and accept them for all their humanness,” she said. “Because of the position that we’re in, our humanness sometimes isn’t accepted, and we’re expected to act in a way that isn’t conducive to a healthy human life and isn’t conducive to being honest.”
Willow’s thoughts come days after Will issued another apology for his behavior at the Academy Awards.
“I apologize to you, my behavior was unacceptable, and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk,” he said in a message to Chris. “There is no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave in that moment. There is no part of me that thinks that’s the optimal way to handle a feeling of disrespect or insult.”
Will also issued an apology to his fans, family, fellow nominees and Oscar winners, including Questlove, who accepted his Oscar for Best Documentary Feature shortly after the altercation.
Hollywood is usually better known for cutthroat competition between, rather than words of support from, those within the industry. However, Warner Bros. Discovery’s canceling of its Batgirl movie has brought out the latter for directors Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi.
The directing duo whose superhero movie was unceremoniously Thanos-snapped out of existence before it could reach streaming or theaters posted to their Instagram Stories that they’ve received encouragement from fellow filmmakers.
They showed a screen grab of a message sent from Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige, with whom the pair worked to acclaim on Ms. Marvel.
The pair were in Morocco for El Arbi’s wedding when they learned Batgirl’s fate. Feige offered congratulations on El Arbi’s wedding, but also mentioned “the disappointing news.“
He added, “Very proud of you guys and all the amazing work you do and particularly ‘Ms. Marvel’ of course! Can’t wait to see what is next for you …”
The pair captioned the message, “Thanks brother Kevin.”
El Arbi also thanked followers for their support. “Shoutout directors Edgar Wright and James Gunn, your kind words and experience mean a lot and help us through this difficult period.”
Both Wright and Gunn have had their own static in the superhero game.
Wright parted ways with Marvel Studios as the director of Ant-Man over creative differences in 2014, and the film was eventually directed by Peyton Reed.
Gunn, for his part, had been fired by Disney in 2018 after offensive old tweets of his resurfaced. He pivoted to Warner Bros. and shot both The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker for the studio.
Gunn apologized for the tweets and eventually was rehired by Marvel Studios’ parent company, for which he completed his upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Aug 05, 4:05 PM EDT
Russia shelled nuclear plant, Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces shelled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant Friday.
Zelenskyy said forces twice struck the plant, which is in Russian-controlled territory in the southeast, and called the action “an act of terror,” in a statement released on Telegram.
“Russia should be responsible for the very fact of creating a threat to the nuclear power plant,” he said in the statement.
The facility is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
The Russian military, however, claimed it was a Ukrainian artillery strike that led to the reduction of activities of one power unit, and power falling at another.
They claimed 20 shells were fired at the city of Enerhodar and the power plant.
“Fortunately, the Ukrainian shells did not hit the oil and fuel facility and the oxygen plant nearby, thus avoiding a larger fire and a possible radiation accident,” Russia’s defense ministry said, according to Reuters.
Earlier this week, the International Atomic Energy Agency officials said the situation at Zaporizhzhia was “out of control” as routine safety checks had not been observed. IAEA officials have appealed for access to the Russian-controlled plant.
Aug 05, 6:33 AM EDT
3 more ships carrying Ukrainian grain leave Odesa-area ports
Another three commercial ships carrying Ukrainian grain have departed from Odesa-area ports under a wartime deal, the Turkish Ministry of National Defense said Friday.
The vessels are bound for Turkey, the United Kingdom and Ireland, with a combined total of 58,000 tons of Ukrainian corn onboard. All three ships will undergo inspection in Istanbul, as is required under the grain exports deal, according to the ministry.
The United Nations confirmed Thursday that three more grain ships — two from the port of Chornomorsk and one from Odesa — were cleared to depart through the designated “maritime humanitarian corridor.”
On Monday, the first commercial vessel carrying Ukrainian grain set sail from Odesa’s port under the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative, bound for the Lebanese port of Tripoli. Last month, Russia and Ukraine signed separate agreements with Turkey and the U.N. to allow Ukraine to resume its shipment of grain from the Black Sea to world markets and for Russia to export grain and fertilizers.
Aug 04, 10:24 AM EDT
Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians, Amnesty International says
Ukrainian forces attempting to repel the Russian invasion have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, Amnesty International said Thursday.
The London-based international human rights group published a new report detailing such tactics, saying they turn civilian objects into military targets.
“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said in a statement. “Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”
Between April and July, Amnesty International researchers spent several weeks investigating Russian airstrikes in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions of Ukraine. The organization inspected strike sites, interviewed survivors, witnesses and relatives of victims of attacks, as well as carried out remote-sensing and weapons analysis. Throughout the probe, researchers found evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from within populated residential areas as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in the regions, according to Amnesty International.
The organization said most residential areas where Ukrainian soldiers located themselves were miles away from front lines, with viable alternatives that would not endanger civilians, such as nearby military bases or densely wooded areas, and other structures further away. In the cases documented, Amnesty International said it is not aware of the Ukrainian troops asking or assisting civilians to evacuate nearby buildings in the residential areas, which the organization called “a failure to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.”
Amnesty International, however, noted that not every Russian attack it documented followed this pattern. In certain other locations in which the organization concluded that Russia had committed war crimes, including in some areas of the city of Kharkiv, the organization did not find evidence of Ukrainian forces located in the civilian areas unlawfully targeted by the Russian military.
Aug 03, 11:21 AM EDT
Inspectors in Turkey clear 1st grain ship from Ukraine, but no sign of more
The first commercial vessel carrying Ukrainian grain under a wartime deal has safely departed the Black Sea, the United Nations said Wednesday.
The Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni set sail from the Ukrainian port city of Odesa on Monday, with more than 26,000 tons of Ukrainian corn on board. The vessel docked off the coast of Istanbul late Tuesday, where it was required to be inspected before being allowed to proceed to its final destination, Lebanon.
A joint civilian inspection comprising officials from Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the U.N. inspected the Razoni on Wednesday morning, checking on the cargo and crew. After three hours, the team cleared the ship to set sail for Lebanon, according to the U.N. said.
“This marks the conclusion of an initial ‘proof of concept’ operation to execute the agreement,” the U.N. said in a statement Wednesday.
It’s the first commercial vessel carrying Ukrainian grain to safely depart the Black Sea since the start of Russia’s ongoing offensive, and the first to do so under the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative. Last month, Russia and Ukraine signed separate agreements with Turkey and the U.N. to allow Ukraine to resume its shipment of grain from the Black Sea to world markets and for Russia to export grain and fertilizers.
In a statement Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Razoni’s journey a “significant step” but noted that “this is only a first step.”
No other grain shipments have departed Ukraine in the last two days and officials on all sides have offered no explanation for that delay.
The U.N. said Wednesday that three Ukrainian ports “are due to resume the export of millions of tons of wheat, corn and other crops,” but didn’t provide further details.
Since Russian forces invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, the cost of grain, fertilizer and fuel has skyrocketed worldwide. Russia and Ukraine — often referred to collectively as Europe’s breadbasket — produce a third of the global supply of wheat and barley, but a Russian blockade in the Black Sea combined with Ukrainian naval mines have made exporting siloed grain and other foodstuffs virtually impossible. As a result, millions of people around the world — particularly in Africa and the Middle East — are now on the brink of famine.
Aug 03, 9:58 AM EDT
Thousands flee ‘hell’ in Ukraine’s east
Two-thirds of residents have fled eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast since the start of Russia’s invasion in late February, according to the regional governor.
Speaking to Ukrainian media on Tuesday, Donetsk Oblast Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said some 350,000 residents remain in the war-torn region.
During his Tuesday evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the hostilities in Ukraine’s east “hell.”
“It cannot be described with words,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian forces cannot yet “completely break the Russian army’s advantage in artillery and manpower, and this is very noticeable in the fighting,” he added.
Last month, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 200,000 civilians must be evacuated from the Donetsk Oblast before the weather gets colder, as there is no proper electricity or gas supply in the area for residents to heat their homes. Russian forces are also destroying heating equipment, according to Vereshchuk.
Zelenskyy has ordered the mandatory evacuation of Donetsk Oblast residents, urging them to leave as soon as possible. Those who comply will be compensated.
“The more people leave [the] Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” he said.
Although many refuse to go, Zelenskyy stressed that “it still needs to be done.”
Mandatory evacuation from Donetsk Oblast began on Aug. 1. The first two trains evacuated 224 people to the central Ukrainian city of Kropyvnytskyi, according to local officials.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Fidel Pavlenko and Yuriy Zaliznyak
(NEW YORK) — Brittney Griner is known for her game on the basketball court, but she’s now become embroiled in a much more dangerous game — a political gambit between Russia and the U.S.
William Pomeranz, the director of the Wilson Center Kennan Institute, is an expert on Russian law and the political developments within the country. He spoke to ABC News Live about the message behind Russia’s sentencing of Griner and what may come next.
He said that Griner’s conviction and nine-year sentence for drug charges Thursday “did not come as a surprise.”
“Russian criminal law treats drug offenses very harshly and I was not surprised that she got basically the maximum sentence,” Pomeranz said.
Griner has been detained in Russia for over five months after she was stopped at an airport for possessing vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in the country. She faced a maximum of 10 years in prison, though she will be credited with five months time served.
Calls to free the WNBA star have escalated in the months since her detainment and put a considerable amount of pressure on the Biden administration to act. Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced discussions of a potential prisoner exchange.
He said the proposal includes exchanging Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, who has been detained in Russia since 2019, for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
President Joe Biden said in a brief comment on Friday that he was “hopeful” and his administration was “working hard” to bring Griner home.
Pomeranz said that whether Griner is a “political hostage” is “up for interpretation,” but the only way to get Griner out of Russia is through diplomacy.
“Diplomatic negotiations are ongoing, but, clearly, because the Biden administration has made the most overtures, the Russians are in the driver seat of when and how Brittney Griner gets home,” said Pomeranz.
Pomeranz added that Griner’s guilty conviction under Russian law may help.
“I think the Russians will be more inclined to negotiate. But how fast? I just don’t know,” said Pomeranz.
