(NEW YORK) — A man arrested with a loaded AK-47 assault rifle outside the Brooklyn, New York home of an outspoken Iranian writer is due in federal court Monday amid questions about his intent.
Khalid Mehdiyev was charged with possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number after he was seen lurking outside the home of Masih Alinejad, who was targeted last year in a kidnapping plot allegedly organized by Iranian nationals, according to the Department of Justice.
Over two days last week, Mehdiyev was seen in a gray Subaru Forester with an Illinois license plate in front of Alinejad’s home for several hours, according to the criminal complaint. In those hours, the complaint said, Mehdiyev “behaved suspiciously” by approaching the residence, attempting to look inside the windows of the residence and attempting to open the front door.
Police later pulled him over for failing to stop at a stop sign. He was arrested for driving with a suspended license, according to the complaint.
In the rear seat of the Subaru, police found a suitcase containing a Norinco AK-47-style assault rifle loaded with a round in the chamber and a magazine attached, according to the complaint. He also had $1,100 in cash and two other license plates issued from other states besides Illinois.
Mehdiyev initially told police he was in the area of the Brooklyn home because he was looking for a place to rent and was going to knock on the woman’s door asking to rent a room. He also claimed he did not know there was an assault rifle in the suitcase, according to the complaint. He later changed his story and admitted the gun belonged to him and he was “looking for someone.” He then asked for a lawyer and stopped talking, according to the complaint.
The complaint did not identify Alinejad but she posted video of the suspect outside her house on Twitter.
“My crime is giving voice to voiceless people,” she wrote. “The US administration must be tough on terror.”
Last July, a federal court unsealed an indictment charging four Iranian nationals with conspiring to kidnap Alinejad for “mobilizing public opinion in Iran and around the world to bring about changes to the regime’s laws and practices.”
Federal prosecutors said the suspects were directed by the government of Iran to conduct surveillance on Alinejad and lure her to a third country to be captured and brought back to Iran.
“You go to my beautiful country, you will be beaten up because you’re unveiled. … I launched a campaign against compulsory hijab, and that is why, actually, I’m receiving death threats,” Alinejad told ABC News Live last year after the kidnapping plot was revealed. “Of course, it is a scary [thing] that they were going to kidnap me, but that shows that they [are] scared [of] me and millions of other Iranian women, Iranian men, who got united this time loudly sending videos to me saying ‘no’ to Islamic Republic. That’s why they sent someone here in New York to kidnap me.”
Over the years, Melissa Etheridge has flirted with Broadway: In 2011, she played the role of St. Jimmy in the musical American Idiot, and in 2019, it was reported that she was writing the music for a stage version of the movie Mystic Pizza. It turns out, she’s also got plans to bring her own songs and story to the Great White Way.
Unlike, say, Jersey Boys, which tells the story of The Four Seasons through the group’s songs, or Mamma Mia!, which uses ABBA‘s songs as part of an original story, Melissa tells ABC Audio that what she has in mind was inspired by something one of her musical heroes did.
“The first thing will be more like Springsteen on Broadway,” Melissa says, referring to the hugely successful run of shows Bruce Springsteen did on and off from 2017 to 2021. “It will be me. It’ll be my songs and my story.”
So, did Melissa just go to see Bruce and figure, “I can do that?” She laughs, “Exactly. I went, ‘I can do that, and I can do it my own way.'”
She explains, “I mean, he did a very specific thing and my story is certainly different. And the way that I would unfold it is going to be different too.”
Melissa has shows scheduled through September — including her destination festival Etheridge Island over Labor Day weekend — but the Broadway plan is looming.
“There might be something at the end of this year; we’ll see,” she teases.
Gina Rodriguez celebrated two things over the weekend — her birthday and her pregnancy!
On Saturday, the Jane the Virgin star celebrated her 38th birthday and announced that she’s expecting her first child with husband Joe LoCicero.
Taking to social media, Rodriguez shared a montage of loving moments between the couple with the last clip being a clip of the pair smiling as she held up a positive pregnancy test.
“This birthday hits different,” she captioned the post.
Rodriguez and LoCicero, who tied the knot in May 2019, were showered with congratulatory messages in the comments.
Brittany Snow wrote, “Yaaaaaay my love!! So much love for you THREE.”
Jordin Sparks also shared the excitement commenting, “OH MY GOSH!!!!!! Congratulations!”
Luke Bryan is returning to host the CMA Awards, but he won’t be doing it alone.
Luke will team up with NFL legend Peyton Manning to host the 56th annual show live from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. This is Luke’s second year hosting the CMAs after making his debut in 2021, and Peyton’s first.
“Being a part of such a historical night that honors my peers and country music is such a privilege. When I was asked if Peyton Manning was someone I would consider co-hosting with I didn’t hesitate. We have become great friends through the years and what he brings to the table is going make it even more of a blast,” Luke shares in a statement. “Hey Peyton, I hope you’re ready for the night of your life!”
“I cannot wait to head to Nashville and take the CMA Awards stage alongside my friend Luke Bryan. I am such a huge fan of country music, so to have the chance to stand among so many incredibly talented artists is an absolute honor,” adds Peyton.
Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood hosted the show for 11 consecutive years before Carrie hosted with Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton in 2019. Reba and Darius Rucker helmed the show in 2020 before passing the baton to Luke.
The CMA Awards air live on November 9 on ABC at 8 p.m. ET.
Metallica has premiered the live video of their Stranger Things-themed performance of “Master of Puppets” at Lollapalooza last week.
During the song’s solo, the stage’s video screens showed footage from the Netflix sci-fi series, specifically of the character Eddie Munson shredding the 1986 thrash classic during the season four finale. The “Master of Puppets” placement in Stranger Things has led to newfound popularity for the track, which charted on the Billboard Hot 100 following the finale’s premiere last month.
You can now watch the “Master of Puppets” live video streaming on YouTube.
The Metallica and Stranger Things collaboration continued throughout Lollapalooza weekend when Eddie Munson actor Joseph Quinn met the metal legends for the first time backstage at the festival. Netflix posted a video of the meeting, which saw Metallica and Quinn jam “Master of Puppets” together. Metallica also gifted Quinn with a signed replica of the guitar he played on Stranger Things.
Dave Grohl, Nine Inch Nails, The Black Keys and The Breeders will all perform at guitar legend Joe Walsh‘s annual veteran’s benefit concert, VetsAid.
The show will take place November 13 in Columbus, Ohio. Walsh, who spent part of his youth growing up in Columbus and went to college at Ohio’s Kent State University, wanted to create an all-Ohio bill for the concert, which this year will specifically support Ohio veterans and their families.
Grohl was born in Warren, Ohio, and NIN, The Black Keys and The Breeders all formed in the Buckeye State.
Tickets go on sale this Friday, August 5 at 10 a.m. ET. For more info, visit VetsAid.org.
Notably, VetsAid marks Grohl’s first announced live appearance to follow Foo Fighters‘ upcoming Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts, taking place September 3 in London and September 27 in Los Angeles. Grohl publicly performed for the first time since Hawkins’ unexpected death in March during Paul McCartney‘s headlining Glastonbury set in June.
(NEW YORK) — Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indiana, has spoken publicly about the negative repercussions she’s faced for providing abortion care to a 10-year-old girl after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, giving states the power to regulate abortion.
“It’s very fulfilling to serve people who need urgent medical help and to answer calls by saying, ‘Yes, of course we’ll take care of her,'” Bernard wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed. “But for the past few weeks, life has been hard — for me and for my family.”
She continued, “I’ve been called a liar. I’ve had my medical and ethical integrity questioned on national television by people who have never met me. I’ve been threatened. And I haven’t been able to talk and explain what I stand for.”
Women’s health doctors across the country say they feel similarly threatened.
“She is literally the same as myself and so many of my colleagues,” Dr. Sujatha Prabhakaran, an abortion care physician in Southwest Florida, told ABC News. “We all could have been in her place. We all would have taken care of that patient and then faced those attacks.”
In Florida, where Prabhakaran is based, nearly all abortions are now banned after 15 weeks, with exceptions allowed to save the mother’s life and if the fetus has a deadly abnormality. Violators can face prison time, as well as, for doctors, the loss of their medical license.
Earlier this year, Florida also instituted a mandatory 24-hour waiting period between an initial doctor’s visit and the abortion procedure.
Prabhakaran described the strain those requirements have put on physicians and patients. She said one patient, who was just past 15 weeks pregnant, had what she described as a “fetal anomaly that was definitely not compatible with the quality of life that this mother wanted for her child” and had to travel to New York state for abortion care.
“A few weeks ago, she could have had her care in Florida,” Prabhakara said. “I’m highly trained and skilled and to not be able to use those skills for somebody who is right in front of me, it tears at your core as a physician.”
Prabhakaran, a board-certified OBGYN, said as a doctor who provides reproductive health care in a state with abortion restrictions, she feels the pressure of each decision, weighing what’s best for patients with what will allow her and her colleagues to keep providing care.
“More than anything, what we’re thinking about all the time is if we make a decision that causes prosecution of one of our physicians, then it means that lots of other patients can’t access care,” she said. “So we’re really, really careful in weighing those decisions about how we ensure we’re complying with the law and then also trying to not overanalyze the law and restrict care more than it needs to be.”
In nearby Tampa, Dr. Rachel Rapkin, a board-certified OBGYN, said she feels patients in Florida are getting “substandard care” because of the new abortion restrictions.
“After seeing what’s happened to doctors like Caitlin Bernard in Indiana who are being so intensely scrutinized … doctors are really scared to provide what should be standard of care to our patients,” Rapkin told ABC News. “And patients are getting substandard care now.”
Rapkin cited as an example the care of a pregnant patient whose water had broken after 15 weeks, prior to fetal viability.
“The standard of care for that is to offer termination because they have a really high risk of getting sick, becoming septic and dying,” said Rapkin, adding that with the new 15-week abortion restriction in place, some doctors out of caution are telling patients, “They just have to go home and wait until they’re sick and then come back.”
As a women’s health doctor operating in a post-Roe world, Rapkin said she feels like her “hands are tied.”
“I went to a lot of years of school and then extra training to be able to provide abortion care to all of my patients … and all of these bans in some way or another threaten our patients’ livelihood,” she said.
In Ohio, where the 10-year-old patient whom Bernard cared for is from, Dr. Ashley Brant, a board-certified OBGYN at Cleveland Clinic, said she and her colleagues are coping with seeing the state’s abortion law impact instances of miscarriages and pre-term deliveries.
Abortion is banned in Ohio as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected, according to Brant.
“Sometimes when a miscarriage is happening the pregnant person has started to bleed heavily, has started to cramp and the cervix has started to open and the pregnancy hasn’t passed yet and there might still be a detectable fetal heartbeat,” Brant told ABC News. “In those cases, in Ohio, if we intervene, we’re being forced to call those abortions, so you can imagine how distressing it is for a patient who is miscarrying, who is losing a wanted pregnancy, to have to be told…, ‘If we’re going to intervene you need to sign this paperwork saying it’s an abortion and we’re going to report it to the state as an abortion.'”
Further in the second trimester, according to Brant, if a fetal anomaly is diagnosed that is not compatible with life, doctors in Ohio are no longer able to give their patients the option to end the pregnancy.
“It’s morally distressing to not be able to provide the full scope of evidence-based care here and to have to say to our patients, ‘I’m sorry. You’re going to have to go out of state even though I have the skills and I’m willing to provide this care, my hands are tied by the law,'” Brant said. “We just had a moral distress reflective debrief exercise for our women’s health care providers because of how distressing the ban has been for us.”
Dr. Jill Gibson, also a board-certified OBGYN and medical director of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, said this is the “hardest time” of her career as she and other doctors are forced to make decisions that she says go against their medical training.
“It’s just been the toughest part of my career thus far because doctors have been put in this really completely impossible situation of having to choose between their ethical oath and obligation to take care of their patients with all of the tools that they have and all of the training and skills that they know, and the potential consequences of being criminally prosecuted for exercising those skills and offering that care,” Gibson told ABC News.
Planned Parenthood of Arizona paused all abortions, surgical and medical, on June 24, the day of the Supreme Court’s decision, according to Gibson. She described the on-the-ground impact of Arizona’s abortion restrictions as “more far-reaching” than she imagined.
“Doctors I think are, out of fear, making patient care decisions that they would not have made one month ago,” she said, describing one instance in which she said a patient had to go through labor with a non-viable fetus so the provider would not be considered assisting the patient in an abortion.
“That patient had to endure labor for much longer than was necessary,” Gibson said. “We have doctors that are really worried that their actions will be interpreted as providing or assisting in care that could be considered abortion.”
Gibson described feeling her medical career has been “derailed,” adding of doctors like herself, “I feel that we are we are being sidelined and the people who have not had any medical training are making decisions for us.”
As of the end of July, at least 13 states have ceased nearly all abortion services.
In Texas, one of those 13 states, Dr. Stephanie Mischell, a family physician who provides abortion care, said she not only cannot provide care to her patients, but also sees them having to travel farther and father for care.
“For a lot of Texans, the place that they used to go was Oklahoma and now you can’t go to Oklahoma, so they go to Louisiana and now you can’t go to Louisiana,” Mischell told ABC News, citing two states where trigger bans took effect after the Supreme Court’s ruling. “It’s becoming increasingly hard for patients to access this care, and it’s really hard to watch patients struggle.”
Mischell said she is still figuring out what to do next herself, whether to move states to be able to provide abortion care or to continue to serve patients in Texas in other ways.
She said her work in the weeks since abortion was banned in Texas has focused on answering patients’ questions on things like where they can travel to access abortion and whether or not they still have access to contraception.
“Right now I’m really focused on the patients and trying to get them the care that they need,” she said. “We provide some other kinds of services, so sometimes people come in for other things, for pregnancy tests or for a miscarriage or something else, but a lot of our focus now is just getting accurate information out into the community.”
When Jake Owen goes “Down to the Honkytonk” these days, he sticks to water.
The singer opened up about his sobriety journey in a social media post this week and explained that he’s hoping his story can be helpful to somebody else.
“317 days ago I embarrassed myself after drinking too much alcohol one night,” he says at the beginning of his post. “It wasn’t the first time, either. The next day, I told myself, ‘Never again.’”
Alongside his message, the singer posted a white square reading “Sober 316 days” — which is a little over 10 months. Jake goes on to detail his motivation for getting sober, saying that his daughters Pearl and Paris are a big part of what inspired him to give up drinking.
“I am better than that, and the people I love the most deserve better,” Jake continues. “My family, my little girls and my friends.”
As he concluded his post, the singer also shared a message of hope for anybody who might be struggling with substance use.
On Monday, Lucasfilm dropped a full-length trailer to its next Star Wars series on Disney+, Andor.
In the prequel series, Diego Luna reprises his Rogue One role as titular Rebel spy Cassian Andor, and the trailer shows that the series will delve into the past he hinted at in that film: That his career working against the Galactic Empire began when he was just a child.
“To steal from the Empire, you just walk in like you belong. They’re so proud of themselves…They can’t imagine that someone like me could get inside their house,” he says as he’s shown infiltrating Imperial bases both as a kid and as an adult.
After some fans griped that the previous Star Wars series Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi centered too much on the desert planet Tatooine, the trailer hints Andor will be a galaxy-spanning adventure, from the-Galactic Republic’s Capital planet Coruscant, to dogfights in space, and skirmishes with Stormtroopers in on the streets of various worlds.
“This is what revolution looks like,” Adria Arjona‘s mysterious — and as of now unnamed — character urges Andor.
“Witness the beginning of Rebellion,” a title card teases.
Andor — also starring Forest Whitaker, Stellan Skarsgård, Genevieve O’Reilly and Alan Tudyk, kicks off with a three-episode premiere on September 21.
Lucasfilm is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
(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 01, 9:14 AM EDT
Russian troops on the move ahead of expected Ukrainian counteroffensive
The Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Monday Russian troops were massing in the direction of the town of Kryvyi Rih in the Dnipropetrovsk region, possibly in a bid to prepare for a large Ukrainian counterattack.
Talk of a major Ukrainian counteroffensive aimed at taking back the southern city of Kherson, about 140 miles south of Kryvyi Rih, has been gathering pace for several weeks.
The Ukrainian military also issued the maximum missile-fire-threat alert on Sunday in reaction to Russian troops massing in the Black Sea.
At least 17 warships and boats of the Russian Black Sea fleet were maneuvering near the Crimean coast on Sunday, according to Ukrainian military officials.
Among them were six Kalibr cruise missile carriers with more than 40 high-precision missiles on board, as well as four large landing ships.
Russia has also been transferring a large number of troops to occupied Crimea, Vadym Skibitskyi, of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, said on Monday.
Russia plans to deploy these troops in the south of Ukraine to conduct future combat operations, Skibitskyi said.
The official added that Russia withdrew tactical groups of airborne troops from the eastern Donetsk region and transferred them to occupied Kherson about two weeks ago.
Russian forces have resumed localized ground attacks northwest and southwest of Izyum over the weekend and may be setting conditions for offensive operations further west into Kharkiv Oblast or toward Kharkiv City, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest report.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd and Max Uzol
Aug 01, 9:09 AM EDT
A ‘day of relief for the world’ as Ukrainian grain shipments resume
Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba called Monday a “day of relief for the world” as his country resumed grain shipments for the first time since Russia’s offensive began.
“The day of relief for the world, especially for our friends in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, as the first Ukrainian grain leaves Odesa after months of Russian blockade,” Kuleba wrote in a post on Twitter. “Ukraine has always been a reliable partner and will remain one should Russia respect its part of the deal.”
Aug 01, 4:12 AM EDT
Ukrainian lawmaker hails departure of 1st grain ship a ‘historic moment’
Watching as the first ship carrying Ukrainian grain set off from Odesa’s port on Monday morning, Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko called it “Ukraine’s victory” over Russia.
Honcharenko, the son of a former Odesa mayor, said this “historic moment” was only possible because Ukraine had inflicted so much damage on the Russian Navy and had liberated nearby Snake Island, forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a deal.
“It shows again the the language of force is the only language Putin understands,” Honcharenko told ABC News.
Honcharenko said he believes 16 more ships in the port will now begin moving out in the coming days. But he cautioned that he thinks Putin will now try to do everything to limit the ships coming in and out to a minimum within the U.N.-brokered deal, utilizing airstrikes near Ukrainian ports as well as trying to invent bureaucratic obstacles.
The next big test of the deal will be when the first ships come to enter Odesa, which Honcharenko said is expected at the end of this week.
-ABC News’ Dragana Jovanovic, Oleksii Pshemyskiy and Patrick Reevell
Aug 01, 3:47 AM EDT
1st ship carrying Ukrainian grain leaves Odesa port
The first ship carrying Ukrainian grain departed Odesa on Monday morning under an internationally brokered deal attempting to ease a global hunger crisis.
The Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni left the Ukrainian port city and is headed to Lebanon, a tiny Mideast nation that imports nearly all of its grain and lacks storage space after a 2020 explosion destroyed grain silos at its main port in Beirut. The vessel is expected to reach Istanbul on Tuesday, where it will be inspected before being allowed to proceed to Tripoli, according to a statement from the Turkish Ministry of National Defense.
Razoni, which is carrying 26,527 tons of corn, is the first commercial ship to set off from Ukraine’s port of Odesa since Feb. 26 and the first vessel to depart under the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative, according to a statement from the spokesperson for the the United Nations secretary-general. 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.
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.
