(NEW YORK) — The severe heat in the Northwest has now turned deadly, with the Oregon state medical examiner reporting two suspected heat deaths on Wednesday.
With temperatures expected to stay in the triple digits across much of the Northwest this weekend, officials are warning people of the dangers.
One death was reported by Multnomah County, which includes Portland, on July 25. Officials have not said where and when the second death occurred.
The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet responded to ABC News’ request for further details on the deaths.
Over a dozen counties across Oregon remain in a state of emergency on Thursday.
Spreading across the country, over 35 million Americans continue to be under excessive heat warnings or heat alerts, with many of them in the Northwest.
Redding, California, will likely near 115 degrees on Thursday to break its previous record, according to the National Weather Service.
Spokane, Washington, may also break a record on Thursday as it is projected to reach 102 degrees.
The extreme heat in the region, coupled with record warm nights, is expected to reach into next week, the NWS said.
Multnomah County officials ask residents to take the heat seriously.
Officials have set up overnight cooling shelters and a daytime cooling center along with officials from the city of Portland and community partners.
County officials said the centers will remain open until at least Friday morning.
“People don’t think they’re at risk from heat. But we have plenty of younger people ending up in the emergency room right now. It’s not cooling off much at night and we’re only halfway through this thing,” Brendon Haggerty, program supervisor at the Multnomah County Health Department, said in a statement.
The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division has put measures in place to ensure safety for outdoor workers during the heat.
According to OSHA, when the heat index hits or exceeds 80 degrees, employers need to provide shady areas for workers to rest, more break time and access to plenty of water. If the index hits 90 degrees, breaks must be longer, communication must become more frequent and each worker must be monitored more closely throughout the shift.
During a 2021 heat wave, 800 people died in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia throughout late June and early July. Heat records were broken across the region, with Portland hitting 116 degrees at its peak.
Bastille has announced an expanded version of the band’s latest album, Give Me the Future.
Dubbed Give Me the Future + Dreams of the Past, the collection includes new songs and reprises in an effort to give a more “complete picture” of Bastille’s intention with the original record.
“You can dive into the ideas of the future and an electronic world, or you can fall back into the past — away from technology and into ideas of memory and nostalgia — both thematically and musically,” says frontman Dan Smith. “Or you can choose full-on dancefloor heartbreak escape.”
Give Me the Future + Dreams of the Past is due out August 26. It also includes the latest edition of Bastille’s Other People’s Heartache mixtape series, which includes various collaborations and a cover of Bruce Springsteen‘s “Dancing in the Dark.”
You can listen to a new Dreams of the Past track called “Revolution” now via digital outlets.
Give Me the Future was first released in February. It includes the singles “Distorted Light Beam,” “No Bad Days” and “Shut Off the Lights.”
Earlier this month, country-rock pioneer Richie Furay, who co-founded Buffalo Springfield and Poco, released his latest solo album, the country covers collection In the Country.
The 12-track album mainly features renditions of major country hits, while also including some noteworthy crossover tunes, like Marc Cohn‘s “Walking in Memphis” and John Denver‘s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
Furay tells ABC Audio the album came about after he reconnected with producer Val Garay, who produced his 1979 album, I Still Have Dreams.
Furay says Val suggested they do a country hits project. They both came up with lists of tunes, which they narrowed down to include chart-toppers from Keith Urban, Garth Brooks, Lonestar, Alabama and Lee Ann Womack.
“Most of ’em were big hits … [but] I don’t want people to listen to this record and do comparisons,” Furay insists. “I just want ’em to sit back, ’cause, man, we just need music today … that people can just get lost in, and just say, ‘Wow, that’s just good sounding music.'”
Furay recorded the album in Nashville with talented session musicians. He also brought in some guests to contribute backing vocals, including his former Poco bandmate, longtime Eagles bassist Timothy B. Schmit.
Furay says of Schmit, who appears on multiple tracks, “He’s just a dear friend … whenever I ask Timothy if he wants to come and be a part of a record … if he’s got the time … he’s always there.”
Schmit also connected Furay with current Eagles touring member Vince Gill, who sings on a cover of the 1958 Ricky Nelson hit “Lonesome Town.”
Furay says working with Gill “was really a thrill and a blessing for me … He’s such a great, talented guy.”
Here’s In the Country‘s full track list:
“Somebody Like You” (Keith Urban)
“I Hope You Dance” (Lee Ann Womack)
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” (John Denver)
“She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful” (Sammy Kershw)
“Your Love Amazes Me” (John Berry)
“I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why)” (Alabama)
“Lonesome Town” (Ricky Nelson)
“Walking in Memphis” (Marc Cohn)
“I’m Already There” (Lonestar)
“The River” (Garth Brooks)
“In This Life” (Collin Raye)
“Chalk” (Buddy & Julie Miller)
Digital Bonus Tracks:
“I Cross My Heart” (George Strait)
“Pickin’ Up the Pieces” (Poco)
Weird, the sort-of biopic about Grammy-winning parodist “Weird” Al Yankovic, will debut on Roku November 4. Al, himself, tweeted the news with a “Mark your calendars…” caption and a photo of the movie poster.
Daniel Radcliffe is shown from the back, dressed in full Al costume, an accordion slung under his right arm as he looks down a California street, the Hollywood sign in the distance.
The back of his red denim jacket is emblazoned with the legend, “Daniel Radcliffe is WEIRD, the Al Yankovic Story”; “Weird” is written in all caps and adorned with rhinestones.
As previously reported, the film also stars Emmy-nominated Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna, who Al parodied with his hit “Like A Surgeon.”
The streaming service teases that the movie explores “every facet of Yankovic’s life, from his meteoric rise to fame with early hits like ‘Eat It’ and ‘Like a Surgeon’ to his torrid celebrity love affairs and famously depraved lifestyle.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration’s unusual decision to publicize its offer to Russia to free Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan — the basketball star and former Marine whom the U.S. says are wrongfully held by Moscow — was made in part to reassure Americans rather than entice the Russians, White House aides said Thursday.
White House spokesman John Kirby said on Good Morning America that the deal the U.S. proposed for Griner and Whelan had been “set forth many weeks ago” and that the administration decided to publicize it to show Americans what President Joe Biden was doing to try to free them amid months-long scrutiny.
“This isn’t something that just happened … This has been going on for a while, and we just haven’t been able to come to fruition on it,” Kirby said.
“There was a lot” that went into the U.S. decision to reveal the proposed deal, he said, “both in terms of what was happening, what wasn’t happening and certainly in the context of Mrs. Griner having to testify yesterday.”
Kirby attested to the administration’s investment, amid criticism from some quarters that they weren’t more engaged. Highlighting the offer to Russia now was valuable even if it hadn’t been accepted, Kirby insisted.
“It was important to put this out there, that the American people know how seriously President Biden takes his responsibilities to bring American citizens home when they’ve been unjustly detained, but we also thought it was important for the world to know how seriously America takes that responsibility,” he said.
Griner was arrested and later pleaded to illegally bringing hashish oil into the country, though she said it was “inadvertent” and was part of her vape cartridge. Her court case is expected to go into next month.
Whelan, who worked in corporate security after being discharged from the Marines, was convicted in Russia of espionage — which he and the U.S. deny.
Sources confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that the possible deal, which the State Department described to reporters as a “substantial proposal,” included exchanging convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout for Griner and Whelan.
Bout, dubbed the “Merchant of Death” by the media, was an internationally infamous weapons trafficker before his 2008 arrest in Thailand. He is serving a 25-year sentence.
State Department spokesman Ned Price declined on Wednesday to shed much light on the government’s offer to Russia but he acknowledged there was precedent for prisoner trades.
Often, however, such deals only become public once they are confirmed and in motion.
“We demonstrated with [Marine veteran] Trevor Reed, who came home some months ago, that the president is prepared to make tough decisions if it means the safe return of Americans,” Blinken told reporters, referring to the former Marine jailed in Russia before he was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 20-year sentence in the U.S. for drug smuggling.
Reed has publicly urged the White House to do more for Griner and Whelan.
He felt the administration was “not doing enough,” he told ABC News earlier this month.
“I hope that President Biden and his administration will do everything possible to get both, you know, Brittney and Paul out of Russia, and that they will do that immediately,” Reed said then. “Because every day that, you know, they sit here and wait to make a decision is one more day that, you know, Paul and Brittney are suffering.”
Both Whelan’s family and Griner’s attorneys said they were gladdened by news on Wednesday of a potential deal for their freedom — but also noted the future was unknown.
“The offer that the U.S. government has made, and extraordinarily made public, is super. Hopefully the Russian government will take the concessions that have been made and allow Paul to come home,” Paul Whelan’s twin brother, David Whelan, said Thursday on Good Morning America.
An attorney for Griner, Maria Blagovolina, said the “defense team learned about [the] U.S. offer from the news” and “is not participating in the swap discussions. From the legal perspective, the swap is possible only after the court reaches a verdict. In any case, we would be really happy if Brittney will be able to come home and hope it will be soon.”
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.”
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that “there are no agreements in this area yet.”
ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva, Shannon K. Crawford and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
Jason and Keely Roberts pose with four of their six children, including their 8-year-old twins, Luke and Cooper. – Roberts Family photo
(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — Eight-year-old Cooper Roberts, who was enjoying a Fourth of July parade when he was shot in the chest in the Highland Park, Illinois, mass shooting, is now paralyzed from the waist down, his mother, Keely Roberts, said.
The bullet went into his back and exited his chest, “which did significant damage throughout his body, including to his aorta, liver, esophagus and spinal cord,” Roberts said in a statement Wednesday.
Cooper remains in the hospital recovering from multiple surgeries and infections, and will need another heart surgery, she said.
“Cooper has been asking me — will I walk again? Will I have to be in a wheelchair forever?” Roberts went on. “I have been straight with him, because I have to be … we don’t know what kind of mobility he will have.”
Roberts herself was shot in two parts of her leg and needs ongoing orthopedic treatment.
Cooper’s twin, Luke, was hit by shrapnel. While his physical injuries were minor, “what he has to carry is devastating,” Roberts said.
“To hold a tourniquet on his mother’s leg … to see his twin brother’s lips go gray … to sit covered in our blood as good Samaritans provided the on-the-spot first-aid that kept us both alive… it’s too much for anyone, much less an 8-year-old,” she wrote.
Seven were killed and dozens were injured in the mass shooting. The suspected gunman is in custody.
“While I — along with Cooper and my entire family, should feel a lot of hate right now — I do not. My family does not. I find myself feeling that I have seen much more kindness than evil,” Roberts said.
The mom of six thanked the community members at the parade who rushed to help and all of the doctors and nurses who have cared for Cooper.
“They saved my son’s life,” she said. “On a holiday, when many were not in, they stepped up and made the impossible possible. There was someone who made sure to be available to run back and forth to a blood bank as needed for Cooper. Those surgeons spent six hours in the operating room refusing to let Cooper die — patch-working his liver, aorta, esophagus — again and again and again pouring blood transfusion after blood transfusion into his body.”
“The fact that Cooper is still here with us today is a miracle,” she added.
She also credited the doctors and nurses for keeping the family’s spirits up and helping Cooper stay “the happy, sweet little boy he has always been.”
Cooper and Luke “are good, sweet boys who love everyone and want good for everyone they know,” Keely Roberts said. “Their lives are so much more and better than this terrible thing than was done to them.”
The suspected mass shooter was indicted Wednesday on 117 counts. He has not entered a plea and is due in court on Aug. 3.
Jason Aldean and his wife, Brittany, took the family on vacation this week, and once again, their two adorable tots are at the center of all the fun.
On Instagram, Brittany shared a carousel of photos and videos from the family’s time in Utah. One video shows four-year-old Memphis and three-year-old Navy excitedly “excavating” at a gem mining facility.
“I’m finding treasure, real treasure,” Memphis tells the camera in the clip as his little sister stays quietly focused behind him. “Look what I’m finding. I see a lot of treasure.”
Other shots show the kids at a ropes adventure facility, with Memphis cheering on Navy as she braves the climbing course. Another snap shows the whole family — including mom and dad — getting ice cream together.
The grownups had fun in Utah, too: “Utah has me all in my feelings!” Brittany wrote in the caption of her post. “So happy to be here.”
Jason and Brittany often share snapshots of their family lives — and luxurious vacation destinations — with their fans. The country star couple recently bought a new home in Florida.
Eight years later, Usher is reflecting on Confessions.
The 2004 album was a staple among fans when it dropped. However, critics didn’t review the project as highly, something the R&B singer chalks it up to it being new territory at the time.
“I feel it was partially on the story that we were telling and people getting acclimated to this new artist and having respect for or understanding of what it was for the guys who grew up with the Princes, the Michael Jacksons, the Whispers, the Isley Brothers, and the Luther Vandrosses,” Usher explained in an interview with Vulture. “They were looking at a new frontier.”
Ultimately, though, the “Yeah!” singer believes “things happen the way they’re supposed to.”
“Maybe this is the time when we look back and we begin to understand it the same way that as a kid I was influenced by music that I didn’t participate in,” he continued. “I wasn’t there for [Michael Jackson’s] Off the Wall. I wasn’t there for [Marvin Gaye‘s] What’s Going On. I wasn’t there for Donny Hathaway albums. But I could find them because there was a space to be able to hear them.”
Usher added that while he wishes that critics “celebrated” his work at the time, “It’s okay that they didn’t because it made me work harder.”
