Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell take flight in the official trailer for the new film drama Devotion, set to open this Thanksgiving. The film looks at the military careers of Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner — played respectively by Majors and Powell — Black and white Navy fighter pilots who developed a close camaraderie during the Korean War, despite the racism Brown experiences as one of the first Black military aviators. Devotion also stars Christina Jackson, Joe Jonas and Thomas Sadoski…
Showtime has cancelled The First Lady after one season, according to Deadline. The anthology’s first season focused on three different eras of the White House, following the political and private lives of Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford and Michelle Obama — played respectively by Gillian Anderson, Michelle Pfeiffer and Viola Davis…
NBC has renewed The Weakest Link for a 20-episode third season, the network announced on Monday. Regarding the renewal, host and executive producer Jane Lynch commented, “I’m very much looking forward to a third season of mocking contestants and encouraging discord.” Production on season three is set to begin in fall 2022, with casting open at TheWeakestLinkCasting.com…
(NEW YORK) — Puzzled scientists are trying to figure out what a giant shark native to the Arctic was doing in considerably warmer waters thousands of miles south of its frigid home.
Researchers from Florida International University and the Belize Fisheries Department recently discovered a Greenland shark, which typically lives in the freezing waters of the Arctic, in the tropical waters of the Caribbean Sea while working with local Belizean fishermen to tag tiger sharks, according to a press release from the university.
The shark was swimming near the Belize Barrier Reef, the second-longest barrier reef in the world, the scientists said. The discovery marks the first time a shark of its kind has been found in western Caribbean waters.
Devanshi Kasana, a marine biologist at FIU and a Ph.D. candidate in the university’s Predator Ecology and Conservation lab, at first thought that what she was looking at was a sixgill shark, which is known to live in the deep waters off coral reefs.
“I knew it was something unusual and so did the fishers, who hadn’t ever seen anything quite like it in all their combined years of fishing,” Kasana said in a statement.
Kasana then conferred with her adviser and other shark experts, texting a photo of the creature. The final determination was that it was “definitely” in the sleeper shark family due to its large size, and was most likely a Greenland shark or a hybrid between a Greenland shark and a Pacific sleeper shark, according to FIU.
It is unclear whether the researchers were able to tag the shark.
“This finding is so exciting because it suggests that these ancient predators are potentially roaming the world’s oceans from pole to Equator, but staying very deep in tropical waters,” Kasana, who is still in Belize, said in an emailed statement to ABC News. “It feels great to be a part of this and be a part of what could be the first step in protecting sleeper sharks in this region.”
Little is known about the Greenland shark. The half-blind shark subsists by scavenging on polar bear carcasses and can live up to 250 and perhaps even 500 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, making them the longest-living vertebrate known to science.
Greenland sharks are also massive in size and can reach up to 23 feet long and weigh up to 1.5 tons, according to National Geographic.
“Because little is known about them, that means nothing can be definitively ruled out about the species,” the scientists said. “Greenland sharks could be trolling the depths of the ocean all across the world.”
Greenland sharks, or Somniosus microcephalus, are listed as a vulnerable species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. The biggest threats they face are climate change and severe weather, which are causing their habitats to alter and shift, and fishing and harvesting.
Hakarl, fermented Greenland shark or other sleeper sharks, is a national dish of Iceland. Greenland shark meat is poisonous until it is dried and fermented over four or five months, and emits a strong odor and tastes of ammonia.
Kasana emphasized that the discovery of the Greenland shark was a joint effort among members of the Belizean shark fishing community, the Belize Fisheries Department and FIU researchers.
The Belizean government recently declared three atolls, including Glover’s Reef where the Greenland shark was found, and the deeper waters around it as protected areas for sharks. This declaration will help keep animals, including undiscovered ones that may be roaming the waters around Glover’s Reef, safe, Kasana said.
“Great discoveries and conservation can happen when fishermen, scientists and the government work together,” said Beverly Wade, director of the Blue Bond and Finance Permanence Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister of Belize. “We can really enhance what we can do individually, while also doing some great conservation work and making fantastic discoveries, like this one.”
(NEW YORK) — After a near-historic decline over the first half of the year, the S&P 500 — a popular index to which many 401(k) accounts are pegged — bounced back in July with its strongest month since November 2020. The other major indices, the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the Dow Industrial Average, reversed their performance, too.
The sudden shift arrived despite little change in the economy. In keeping with recent months, the government released mixed economic data and the Federal Reserve escalated a series of borrowing cost increases meant to slow economic activity, slash demand and dial back inflation.
The explanation behind the bounce back, investment strategists told ABC News, is the reason why investors should not expect it to endure: expectations.
It hardly sounds like the makings of a stock boom, which relies on investor optimism about the outlook for corporate profits.
Over the first half of the year, as the market plummeted and pessimism reigned, investors lowered their expectations, the strategists said. Last month, when the Federal Reserve signaled it would someday ratchet down rate increases and many corporations reported better-than-anticipated earnings, investors saw a reason for a turnabout in sentiment, they added.
The strong returns in July raise expectations, however, the market is setting up for underperformance amid persistent economic challenges, such as inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions, the strategists said.
“It’s not about good or bad,” Ryan Detrick, the chief market strategist at Carson Group, told ABC News. “It’s about better or worse.”
“Expectations were so low — the wick was there,” he said. “We needed anything to light that fire.”
Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said it will prove difficult to keep that fire lit.
“Unfortunately, along with rising stock prices, you have rising expectations as well,” he said.
For months, market sentiment has strained under the weight of an economy beset by a stark imbalance between supply and demand. A surge in demand followed a pandemic-induced flood of economic stimulus that combined with a widespread shift toward goods instead of services. Meanwhile, that stimulus brought about a speedy economic recovery from the March 2020 downturn, triggering a hiring blitz.
But the surge in demand for goods and labor far outpaced supply. COVID-related bottlenecks in China and elsewhere slowed delivery times and infection fears kept workers on the sidelines. In turn, prices and wages skyrocketed, ultimately prompting sky-high inflation that had not only endured for many months but had also gotten worse, even as economic growth slowed and recession fears grew.
Taken together, the near-historic inflation and sluggish economic activity drove away stock market investors over the first half of the year, said Samana, the senior global market strategist at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
“People, to a certain extent, had been throwing in the towel on equities. They were worried about the Fed, worried about China, worried about commodity prices, worried about a recession,” he said. “There was no shortage of worries.”
“What often happens when you get that level of concern is that everybody is on one side of the boat,” he added. “Then what happens is you get a piece of data that isn’t as bad as feared, and people shift to the other side. It causes a herd mentality.”
Market strategists largely attributed the July turnaround to the Federal Reserve signaling it would raise its benchmark interest rate 0.75%, which it ultimately did on Wednesday — a significant hike but less than the 1% increase that some observers had originally feared. Plus, investors seized on comments made by Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday that the pace of rate hikes would eventually slow.
“People think the Fed will have to change its mindset sooner rather than later,” Mike O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading, told ABC News.
Over the first six months of the year, the S&P 500 plummeted 20.6%, marking its worst first-half performance of any year since 1970. But the index added back 9.1% last month alone.
The blistering pace from July isn’t sustainable, the strategists said. Further, investors should expect volatile highs and lows for the remainder of the year, they added.
O’Rourke said investors should expect a volatile market for the next six to 12 months. Other strategists echoed that view, including Detrick, who warned that investors shouldn’t treat July as a turning point. That said, he urged them to stay the course.
“This year has been historically volatile and disappointing for investors,” Detrick said. “To panic and sell when everything is darkest, that’s the worst time to do it. Hopefully this bounce back in July reminds investors of that.”
“But the truth is, we’re not out of the woods,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — A 49-year-old Texas man was sentenced by a judge to more than seven years in prison Monday for his role in the Capitol attack, the harshest sentence yet for a Jan. 6 defendant — but legal and national security experts say another decision made by the judge could carry potentially broader implications.
In handing down an 87-month sentence to Guy Wesley Reffitt, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich declined to characterize the defendant as a domestic terrorist, as prosecutors had requested.
Prosecutors had sought a 15-year prison term for Reffitt, predicated on the use of an increasingly rare legal tool called the “terrorism enhancement,” which empowers judges to issue sentences above the federal guidelines for certain crimes. Federal sentencing guidelines in Reffitt’s case called for a prison sentence between nine and 11 years.
On Monday, Friedrich brushed aside the government’s motion for a terrorism enhancement, citing other Jan.6-related defendants whose conduct appeared to be more serious than Reffitt’s — and for whom the Justice Department chose not to pursue the terrorism enhancement.
Experts said Fridrich’s decision demonstrates the challenge prosecutors face in meeting the exceptionally high standard to formally label someone a terrorist under the law.
“In the court of common sense, individuals who went into the Capitol to engage in destructive behavior and disrupt a lawful government proceeding may have, by definition, committed an act terrorism,” said John Cohen, a former Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor. “But the challenge for prosecutors is to prove that a defendant has met the specific legal elements of a terrorism offense.”
The terrorism enhancement, codified in section 3A 1.4 of the federal sentencing guidelines, traces its roots back to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, after which Congress enacted tougher penalties to deter acts of “intimidation or coercion” aimed at the government or civilian population.
In the intervening years, terrorism sentences have most frequently been applied to defendants with ties to ISIS or al-Qaeda, or to violent domestic extremists like Cesar Sayoc, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to mailing pipe bombs to members of Congress.
But critics complain that the law is too broad and too inconsistently applied.
In 2017, for example, prosecutors secured a terrorism enhancement for Jessica Reznicek, a climate activist who pleaded guilty to damaging pipeline infrastructure across the Midwest. A federal appeals court upheld her sentence in June.
Meanwhile, neither Dylann Roof, who pleaded guilty to massacring nine people at a Charleston bible study, nor James Fields, who was convicted of killing a Charlottesville demonstrator with his car, were sentenced with the terrorism enhancement.
Reffitt, for his part, brought a weapon to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and threatened to “physically attack, remove, and replace” lawmakers, making him a “quintessential” case for the enhancement, prosecutors wrote in a July sentencing memorandum. In March, a jury found him guilty on five felony counts, including obstruction of justice, as well as entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a firearm.
The case marked the first time the Justice Department sought to have a terrorism enhancement applied to a Jan. 6 defendant.
“We do believe that what he was doing that day was domestic terrorism and we do believe that he’s a domestic terrorist,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler told Judge Friedrich Monday, before the judge declined to apply the terrorism enhancement.
In rejecting the enhancement, Friedrich sided with Reffitt’s defense counsel, who accused prosecutors of utilizing the tool as retribution for Reffitt taking the case to trial.
“This is the only case where the government has asked for the terrorism enhancement, and this is the only case where the defendant has gone to trial,” said Clinton Broden, a lawyer for Reffitt. “I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure that out.”
Friedrich’s decision to reject the enhancement in Reffitt’s case serves as further evidence of its “undisciplined, arbitrary use” in federal cases, according to Bill Quigley, a lawyer for Reznicek.
“How can Jessica Reznicek be a terrorist in the eyes of the law, and this person who stormed the Capitol and threatened members of Congress not be?” Quigley said.
“It is ironic that prosecutors managed to secure this enhancement for a person who damaged infrastructure belonging to a private company, but the courts failed to apply the same label to someone who used violence to further their extremist ideological beliefs in the seat of our democracy,” Cohen said.
Jordan Strauss, a former national security official in the Justice Department, pointed out that the government’s pursuit of a terrorist enhancement against Reffitt could mark a shift in its handling of Jan. 6-related cases — and could foreshadow a more aggressive approach in future cases.
“This case is noteworthy in that it may reflect a policy change for January 6th cases moving forward,” said Strauss, who now serves as the managing director at the Kroll Institute, a corporate consulting firm. “We should expect to see more enhancements sought, particularly if there are guilty verdicts in the more complex sedition cases.”
(NEW YORK) — Doctors and other health care providers are being warned to look out for symptoms of a virus that can cause seizures and severe illness in infants.
Nearly two dozen infants were admitted to a Tennessee hospital this spring due to parechovirus, a virus that is especially dangerous for babies under 3 months old, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While the majority of the infants, ages 5 months and under, recovered without complications, two may have long-term complications, including hearing loss and severe developmental delay, from the virus, the CDC said.
The agency’s report follows an alert it issued last month to health care providers warning about the presence of parechovirus.
Here are five things for parents to know about the virus and the CDC’s warning.
1. Parechovirus is especially dangerous for babies under 3 months old.
The virus, known as PeV, can cause severe illness in babies under 3 months old, and is most dangerous to newborns.
According to the CDC, the virus can cause sepsis-like illness, seizures and infection around the brain and spinal cord called meningitis — or meningoencephalitis — in infants, and can lead to long-term neurological complications in rare cases.
2. The type of parechovirus currently spreading is the most severe.
Most types of human parechoviruses are common childhood pathogens and less serious in kids older than 6 months, spreading through sneezing, coughing and saliva and feces.
The type that has been detected in newborns and young infants, PeV-A3, is the type “most often associated with severe disease,” according to the CDC. The specific strain of parechovirus was not identified in the report from the cases in Tennessee.
3. Symptoms include seizures.
The CDC has instructed health care providers to watch for symptoms of fever, sepsis-like syndrome, seizures and meningitis without a known cause in young infants.
PeV can be detected through lab tests from stool swabs and respiratory specimens, as well as cerebrospinal, blister or blood specimens, depending on the symptoms. Because this isn’t a virus that is routinely tested for, health care providers are being told to keep this virus in mind in case this extra testing is needed.
4. The rise in cases could be due to more testing.
The CDC acknowledged in its alert that the higher number of cases reported over the past few months could be a result of better testing.
“Because there is presently no systematic surveillance for PeVs in the United States, it is not clear how the number of PeV cases reported in 2022 compares to previous seasons,” the CDC said. “PeV laboratory testing has become more widely available in recent years, and it is possible that increased testing has led to a higher number of PeV diagnoses compared with previous years.”
The study authors also note, “This peak in infections might reflect relaxation of COVID-19 isolation measures consistent with increased prevalence of other respiratory viruses.”
5. There is no treatment for PeV.
The CDC said that while there is no specific treatment for PeV, getting a diagnosis matters.
“Diagnosing PeV in infants might change management strategies and provide important health information for families,” the CDC said.
(NEW YORK) — WNBA star Brittney Griner is set to appear in court Tuesday in Russia, where she has been detained for more than five months, as the United States floats a proposal to secure her release.
Griner, a 31-year-old Houston native who plays professional basketball for the Phoenix Mercury, was detained on Feb. 17 at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Khimki as she returned to Russia to play during the WNBA’s offseason after she was accused of having vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in the country. If convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison and also has a right to an appeal.
In a sharp reversal, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced last week that he will hold a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “in the coming days” to discuss securing the freedom of Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who has been detained in Russia since late 2018.
“[They] have been wrongly detained and must be allowed to come home,” Blinken told reporters on Wednesday. “We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and I hope [to] move us toward a resolution.”
Blinken told reporters on Friday that he had a “frank and direct conversation” with Lavrov about a U.S. proposal to exchange convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout in return for Griner and Whelan’s freedom.
“I pressed the Kremlin to accept the substantial proposal that we put forth on the release of Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner,” Blinken said.
“I’m not going to characterize his responses and I can’t give you an assessment of whether I think things are more or less likely, but it was important that [he] hear directly from me on that,” he added.
At a press conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova confirmed that “the issue of mutual exchange of Russian and American citizens, staying in places of detention on the territory of the two countries, was discussed at one time by the presidents of Russia and the United States,” but “a concrete result has not yet been achieved.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began one week after Griner was detained, and some officials have expressed concern that Americans jailed in Russia could be used as leverage in the ongoing conflict.
The U.S. State Department classified Griner’s case on May 3 as “wrongfully detained.”
Calls to free Griner and Whelan escalated following the May release of U.S. Marine veteran Trevor Reed, who was freed from a Russian prison as part of a prisoner exchange.
Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges in court last month, saying that the vape cartridges containing hashish oil were in her luggage mistakenly and that she had no “intention” of breaking Russian law.
Her legal team told ABC News in a statement last month that her “guilty” plea was recommended by her Russian attorneys.
Griner, who last appeared in court on July 27, testified that she did not mean to violate Russian law when bringing vape cartridges into the country.
She testified that she has permission to use medical cannabis and used a certificate to buy it in the U.S. Last month, one of Griner’s attorneys presented a letter from an American doctor in court, giving her permission to use cannabis to reduce chronic pain.
Griner also said she did not mean to leave the cartridges in her bag, but that she was in a hurry and was stressed after recovering from COVID-19 that month. The WNBA star said she was aware that the U.S. had warned Americans about traveling to Russia, but she didn’t want to let her team down in the playoffs.
(NEW YORK) — Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab spoke with ABC News Live Monday ahead of the state’s anticipated primary election, which includes a referendum on abortion laws.
Voters on Tuesday will decide on a proposal to amend the state constitution to explicitly disavow the right to access abortion. It will be the first popular vote on abortion rights in nearly 50 years.
Below is a transcript of Schwab’s interview with ABC News’ Kyra Phillips:
ABC NEWS LIVE:Well, clearly, it’s a huge vote tomorrow on abortion in your state. Your office estimates that this issue alone could actually bring in an extra 200,000 voters to the polls. Kansas is a red state, of course. So tell me, why is this issue in particular energizing voters there and is that good for Republicans right now?
SCOTT SCHWAB:Well, I think it’s good for our republic to get voters energized. But this is a big issue because we’ve always seemed to be at the center in Kansas on these big social issues, whether it’s slavery, women’s suffrage, prohibition [or] the Civil Rights Act. What’s interesting about this is the Supreme Court of Kansas said there’s an inherent right to an abortion in the Kansas Constitution, and the word does not even exist in the Constitution. But it kind of edges the legislature out from making policy. So this has created the big debate on how much regulation — and should there be regulation — on abortions in our state.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Which leads me to my next question. You know, if abortion remains legal in Kansas, is that the end of the legal fight or will Republicans pursue further restrictions on abortion going forward?
SCHWAB:Well, if the measure passes, it’s very difficult for the legislature to regulate anything as it relates to abortion. I’m no longer a policymaker in the House, even though I had been at a time. We will always have those debates on abortion and some measures will pass, some won’t.
But really, I can see after this, because this has been such a topic of an issue, this constitutional amendment, that the legislature might want to sit back and just take a breath if it passes. Because we have had a whole lot of good laws on the books that aren’t in effect because that Supreme Court ruling and it’ll just be like what we had six, seven years ago. I think a lot of legislators in our state will just kind of want to take a break, but that’s just my prediction.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Take a break. Define take a break. What does that mean?
SCHWAB:We’ll take a break in…not deal with this issue this year. Let’s deal with some other issues that have taken a back-burner, because these social issues have really taken a lot of the legislature’s bandwidth. So there’s a lot of things like K through 12 funding and highway funding and rainy day fund. So I really think the legislature will probably want to focus on this next upcoming session. But I could be wrong. The legislature is an independent body.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Well, and think about all the political pressure. I mean, you really think abortion would take a back seat?
SCHWAB:Actually, they tried to pass this amendment to go to the vote of the people two years ago. And it didn’t pass. It didn’t, it didn’t have the votes to go there. So, yes, sometimes it does.
ABC NEWS LIVE: All right. Let’s talk voter confidence, shall we? Since we’re talking about that, you’re in a pretty tight primary yourself. Your opponent, former County Commissioner Mike Brown, has echoed Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud. He’s made election security central to his campaign against you. What’s your response to those lies about the 2020 election? Where do you stand?
SCHWAB:Well, you know, it is frustrating because he was a county commissioner at the time and he certified his own loss in that election and trusted enough to do that and that all of a sudden the turn. But, President Trump is not complaining about Kansas and we do post-election audits. We’ve done over 300 post-election audits in Kansas since we took office in 2019. And one, not one county has failed their audit. And we’re unique in that that we do post-election audits in a way that they are finished before the board of canvassers meet to show those board of canvassers an error did not occur. And every county has voter paper ballot verification that gets counted. So it’s pretty, it’s pretty hard to cheat.
ABC NEWS LIVE:But if you just look at the past couple of years. Can you win as a Republican if you reject the former president’s false claims about the election? We see the power that Trump still holds within the GOP. What do you say to those in your party who do continue to peddle the “big lie” because it’s still happening?
SCHWAB: It is interesting. I had a friend [who told] me saying, “It’s interesting the people who believe conspiracy theories about somebody trying to control them are allowing themselves to be controlled by the very people spreading the conspiracy theory.” The complaint in Kansas isn’t valid.
And that’s where we put our focus…
I don’t judge other states because I would have to go there and audit them. And I don’t have time to do that because I’m paid to do [that] here in Kansas and in Kansas we get it right. And it’s just the outside voices coming into our state, making false attacks and assumptions that the law itself prevents from happening.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Before we let you go, Scott, I’ve got to ask about one of the stories making news. Of course, locally, your office is refusing to turn over provisional ballot records ahead of voting tomorrow, despite a court ruling that says you violated the state’s open records law. You know, the governor there in Kansas has urged you and your office to comply with the ruling. You’re running as the candidate with integrity and challenge your opponent over his 2020 election lies. How can you claim that while ignoring this court order?
SCHWAB:Well, we can’t do the court order. It requires a software upgrade that we can’t do right now. And we will be appealing that to the Kansas Supreme Court because a lower court agreed with us. What it is, is it’s partial information in that report, and we’re constantly trying to fight partial and misinformation and that appellate courts change Kansas law, as opposed to the open records being, “Hey, if there’s a record, you’ve got to make it open.” The appellate court says you got to create the record. Well, that’s something completely different that we’ve never had to deal with before.
It’s almost like in an open meetings act forcing a legislative body to have a meeting when they normally don’t wish to have a meeting. So we’re struggling with trying to comply with a court order that physically we cannot comply with while trying to run an election. And we don’t want to do massive software changes while we’re in the middle of an election.
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — Strong rain continued to fall early Tuesday in Kentucky, as officials and first responders worked to find perhaps hundreds of people who were reported missing amid floods that have killed at least 37.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday evening warned that a “series of complex storms” were moving overnight through counties already ravaged by flooding.
“The biggest concern is overnight flooding,” he said on Twitter. “Please, if you are in an area that has suffered flooding seek shelter on higher ground. Be weather-aware and stay safe.”
The National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center early on Tuesday warned of flash floods throughout Kentucky, along with areas in Tennessee, Virginia, Illinois and Indiana.
The Kentucky governor’s office said Beshear on Tuesday would visit three eastern counties hit by the flooding. He was expected to meet with local officials, volunteers and families.
At least 37 people were reported dead as of Monday, Beshear said. He had said earlier in the day that there were “hundreds of unaccounted for people, minimum,” but cautioned that the number wasn’t exact.
Almost 600 people had been rescued from flooded areas by Monday, with thousands more expected to lose their homes, the governor’s office said.
The National Weather Service issued a new flash flood warning for “most” of Kentucky at about 2:30 a.m. local time. South-central Illinois and far southern Indiana were also expected to get heavy rains that could result in flash flooding, the center said.
Some areas in Kentucky had seen from 4 to 8 inches of rain in six hours prior to 2 a.m., the center said.
“Instances of flash flooding are likely to continue and expand through dawn, possibly becoming significant to extreme locally near the IL/IN/KY border region,” the center said.
Beshear’s office said the governor will brief media at the Capitol at 8 a.m. local time, offering details on the state’s response.
Brett Young‘s birthday message for his wife is an example of true romance.
In honor of his wife Taylor‘s 35th birthday on August 1, Brett shared a throwback photo of the couple looking happy and in love, accompanied by a message professing his adoration for her.
In the lengthy caption, the country singer praises Taylor, who’s also mother to their daughters — 2-year-old Paisley and 1-year-old Rowan — for being the “best mom, wife, partner and friend I could ever dream of.”
“You age like a fine wine, baby! Not sure how it’s possible but you get more beautiful everyday… inside and out,” Brett writes in the caption. “I love you more than you’ll ever know. Now let’s spend today (and the rest of the month, obviously) celebrating you and how much better you make the world for the people that know and love you! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRETTY GIRL!!!”
Brett and Taylor met through a mutual friend while Taylor was still in college at Arizona State University in 2008. When Brett moved to Orange County, California, they dated long distance until Taylor moved to be closer to him. They had an on-again, off-again relationship for years before tying the knot in October 2018. They welcomed eldest daughter, Paisley, in October 2019 and Rowan last July.
Ahead of his appearance on the CMA Fest special this week, Jason Aldean is looking back on his first performance at the festival, which proves what a difference a year makes.
Jason Aldean recalls performing in the parking lot of Nissan Stadium in 2005, but even then, he had his eyes set on those stadium lights, hoping one day he’d reach them.
“My first CMA performance ever was in the parking lot. I didn’t play the stadium, I played the parking lot, and I think there was about 15 people watching the show. Out of those 15, maybe two of them knew who I was,” Jason says. “I was outside and I kept looking at the stadium … I knew that’s where I needed to get to if I wanted to really make a splash.”
That dream soon became reality, as Jason was one of the headlining acts at the massive venue at the 2006 festival, following the success of hits like “Why” and “Amarillo Sky.” The superstar notes that getting to headline the stadium during the annual festival is a career milestone.
“The following year, I was playing the stadium and there’s nothing like it. That was the first time I think I’d ever played a stadium, so to walk out and see that many people, and we were starting to take off about that time too and people were knowing our songs,” he recalls. “It was a big difference from that year to the year we were playing in the parking lot, so it was definitely a game-changer.”
Jason will perform a pair of hits spanning his decadeslong career — “She’s Country” and “Trouble With a Heartbreak” — when CMA Fest airs on ABC on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.
