Sheryl Crow is just one of the several artists who were set to perform as part of this week’s Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois. But the festival has canceled or postponed all scheduled shows through July 10, in the wake of the mass shooting in Highland Park on July 4 that left seven people dead and dozens more wounded.
On Twitter, Sheryl, a longtime anti-gun violence advocate, posted the festival notification and wrote, “We are hurting w/ the community of #HighlandPark & all the communities suffering from gun violence during this confusing time in our history. We feel helpless to know how to help. We encourage everyone to give to those who are in mourning.”
She added that she plans to her reschedule her Ravinia appearance, which was to have taken place Thursday night. Her next show is July 8 in Ohio. All ticket holders will receive refunds by August 1.
On Wednesday, the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Robert Crimo III, was ordered held without bond by a judge. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 28.
Although we’re unable to see Justin Bieber livein concert at this time, that’s not stopping him from putting on a virtual reality show.
Garena has teamed with the “Peaches” hitmaker to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Free Fire game. The platform is reportedly pulling out all the stops to get fans excited for the milestone event — and that includes a special collaboration with Justin.
“I’m excited to partner with Garena Free Fire to have this opportunity to entertain my fans across the globe,” he raved. “This collaboration with Free Fire has allowed us to explore various dimensions in which we can integrate my music with games and I can’t wait for everyone to enjoy what we have worked hard on behind the scenes.”
Justin will not only step up for a in-game performance, set for August 27, he will also debut an exclusive track just for the game’s anniversary.
Not only that, Garena is making it possible for players to dress their avatars up in new outfits and enjoy some custom emotes to dance along to the Grammy winner’s music. That’s not all, though — players can also take on some minigames and win a chance to perform with Justin’s avatar on the virtual stage.
Garena teased there will be more exciting announcements to come in the following weeks.
Free Fire is a battle royale, first-person shooter game, and is one of the top gaming apps on the iOS and Android stores. The game set a record in August 2021 for having the most global players online in a single day — over 150 million.
Here’s wishing Ringo Starr a very happy 82nd birthday filled, of course, with peace and love!
As previously reported, the former Beatles drummer is marking the occasion with the latest installment of his annual “Peace and Love” birthday celebration. This year’s event will feature Ringo gathering privately in Los Angeles with wife Barbara, some of his All Starr Band mates and several other celebrity friends to give a “Peace and Love” salute at noon local time.
Taking part in the celebration will be All Starr Band members Steve Lukather, Edgar Winter, Colin Hay, Warren Ham and Gregg Bissonette, as well as Benmont Tench, Richard Marx, Matt Sorum, Jim Keltner, Ed Begley Jr., Linda Perry, Diane Warren, and the late Roy Orbison‘s sons Roy Jr. and Alex.
As usual, Ringo is asking everyone to join in by saying or thinking “Peace and Love,” and/or flashing a peace sign, at noon local time wherever they are in the world.
As part of this year’s celebration, Artemis Music Space Network, with help from the International Space Station, will transmit Starr’s message across the planet, and into Earth’s orbit and outer space.
At noon, Ringo will signal the Artemis Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, to beam his message and music — including his 2021 single “Let’s Change the World” — to the International Space Station, which will relay peace-and-love messages and music down to the planet and out to the stars.
The event will kick off with a number of musical performances paying tribute to Ringo.
Meanwhile, “Peace and Love” celebrations are taking place in many locations around the world, including at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. In addition, a special Starr playlist will be played today in over 10,000 Starbucks stores.
The Terminal List, out now on Prime Video, stars Chris Pratt, as a Navy SEAL whose colleague is ambushed while on a mission.
Constance Wu also stars in the series, playing journalist Katie Buranek. She tells ABC Audio the show takes audiences on a journey and is far from predictable.
“It’s not a static story,” Wu shares. “…There’s a lot of twists and turns and things you don’t expect.”
“You just have so many questions and there’s so much mystery and every time you get a different clue, you’re like, whoa, it like blows your mind,” she explains. “I think that Jack Carr and the writers of the scripts for Terminal List did a really great job of really making it unexpected because that’s what makes it fun.”
The script wasn’t the only thing that made working on the series fun. Jeanne Tripplehorn, who portrays Secretary of Defense Lorraine Hartley in the action-thriller, dished that Pratt liked to joke around on set.
“When we’re in a scene, he knows he’s not joking around…But he definitely has a light spirit and keeps the atmosphere…doesn’t get too heavy,” she says.
LaMonica Garrett, whom audiences will know as Commander Cox in the series, shared a similar sentiment about their costar, stating that Pratt maintained the same excitement from beginning to end.
“It was a long, hard shoot, long days, long nights. And I was there from the first day to the end,” she recalls. “But the last day of working, he still had that same enthusiasm, the same energy and the same kind of zest for coming to set. And everyone involved with that from the cast, the crew, the crafty, everyone, you know, it just makes the days better. But he keeps that same enthusiasm.”
Jerry Harris, a former star of the popular Netflix docuseries Cheer, was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to sex crime charges earlier this year.
The 22-year-old actor pleaded guilty in February to receiving child pornography and engaging in interstate travel for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor under the age of 15.
Harris faced several other sexual misconduct charges. As part of his plea agreement, he admitted to the rest of the charges as stipulated offenses.
He had faced five to 50 years in prison.
U.S. District Court Judge Manish S. Shah also sentenced Harris to eight years of supervised release following his time in federal prison.
Allegations against Harris, who was a breakout star of the first season of Cheer, first came to light in September 2020, when he was arrested and charged with one count of producing child pornography.
A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago alleged that Harris enticed an underage boy to produce and send sexually explicit videos and photographs of himself.
The complaint also stated that the boy, who said that he was first contacted by Harris in December 2018, informed Harris during a conversation on social media that he was 13 years old at the time. Harris was accused in the complaint of also making similar requests to the boy’s twin brother.
As part of the sentencing Wednesday, Judge Shah ordered Harris to pay a combined $45,000 under two laws that provide restitution for victims of child pornography and sexual abuse, court records show.
(WASHINGTON) — Speaking alongside his British counterpart in London on Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray called China the “biggest long-term threat” to both the U.S. and the U.K.
“The Chinese government is set on stealing your technology — whatever it is that makes your industry tick — and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market,” Wray said while giving remarks to international business leaders. “And they’re set on using every tool at their disposal to do it.”
Wray also warned of potential tactics by Chinese officials, saying they steal technology by using intelligence officers to “target” valuable pieces of information and companies.
“We’ve even caught people affiliated with Chinese companies out in the U.S. heartland, sneaking into fields to dig up proprietary, genetically modified seeds, which would have cost them nearly a decade and billions in research to develop themselves,” Wray said. “And those efforts pale in comparison to their lavishly-resourced hacking program that’s bigger than that of every other major country combined.”
The Chinese, Wray said, use cyber to “steal” volumes of information. He said U.S. officials are working with MI5, the British intelligence service, to identify other investments that the Chinese government makes in proxy relationships — a kind of third-party venue through which China steals information.
Wray said that U.S. companies should be wary of working with or in China, something about which he has warned before, and he urged business leaders to contact the FBI for further information on ways to mitigate the Chinese cyber threat.
His warning was the latest episode of the U.S. pushing back on what they describe as Chinese hostility. Relations between the U.S. and China have evolved since President Joe Biden took office — his predecessor Donald Trump embarked on a trade war with the country — and the U.S. and China remain deeply intertwined, though they are often opposed on various issues.
After one call between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this year, the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry said, “The U.S.-China relationship has not yet emerged from the predicament created by the previous U.S. administration but has instead encountered more and more challenges. The U.S. side has made a misreading and misjudgment of China’s strategic intentions.”
On Wednesday, Wray warned that if China were to invade Taiwan, U.S. companies could see a repeat, on a much larger scale, of the economic disarray from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting international condemnation.
“Just as in Russia, Western investments built over years could become hostage capital stranded, supply chains and relationships disrupted,” he said. “Companies are caught between sanctions and Chinese law forbidding compliance with them. That’s not just geopolitics. It’s business forecasting.”
Wray concluded by saying the U.S. and U.K. were working together to combat this threat.
His remarks come as American law enforcement agencies and the Treasury Department cautioned the public of another overseas adversary, this one targeting hospital systems.
North Korean-backed cyber actors are targeting the health care and public health sector, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI and Treasury Department said on Wednesday.
These actors use Maui ransomware, a specific technology that has a North Korean hallmark, to infiltrate health care sectors and hold their systems ransom in exchange for a payment, American officials said in an advisory.
The officials said that since May 2021, the agencies have observed and reacted to “multiple” Maui ransomware incidents indicating that they came from North Korea.
“North Korean state-sponsored cyber actors used Maui ransomware in these incidents to encrypt servers responsible for healthcare services—including electronic health records services, diagnostics services, imaging services, and intranet services,” the advisory states. “In some cases, these incidents disrupted the services provided by the targeted HPH Sector organizations for prolonged periods.”
The agencies believe that because health care organizations “provide services that are critical to human life and health,” they are likely to pay ransoms when attacked. Law enforcement advise not paying the ransom and to contact CISA or the FBI instead.
“Because of this assumption, the FBI, CISA, and Treasury assess North Korean state-sponsored actors are likely to continue targeting HPH Sector organizations,” the officials said.
(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — Lorena Rebollar Sedano has attended the Highland Park, Illinois, Fourth of July parade for 28 years, but this year’s festivities turned to terror when Sedano and her family were caught in the crossfire after a gunman opened fire during Monday’s celebration.
Sedano told ABC News that she and her family immediately rushed to a nearby store for safety. When she got inside and collected herself, Sedano soon realized that she was hit.
“A lady told me ‘Are you OK?’ I told her, ‘Yes.’ She goes ‘But you’re hurt, you’re bleeding,'” Sedano told ABC News. “That’s when I looked at my foot and my shoe was full of blood.”
Sedano was at the parade with her nieces and their three children, ages 1, 3 and 9 years old. Sedano called her daughter, who was en route to the parade, and told her not to come once the shooting began.
“I kept saying, ‘I’m OK, I’m OK,'” she said.
Four other family members who were with Sedano were also hurt, she said. While she waited for first responders to arrive, Sedano said other people who were hiding out in the store helped her.
She was hospitalized, treated for her wounds and released. But Sedano’s recovery is only just beginning.
Sedano said doctors told her bullet fragments are still lodged on the side of her ankle and would go away eventually.
Sedano said it was a miracle that she and her family survived the shooting. She said her family was right next to Nicholas Toledo, one of the seven victims killed in the shooting, who they knew.
Sedano will not go back to the parade and likely won’t attend large events for a very long time.
“We were like the target for the gunshots,” she said.
Steve Perry and Neal Schon in 2017; Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
As Journey prepares to release its latest studio album, Freedom, this Friday, founding guitarist Neal Schon reveals he’s working on becoming friends again with the group’s famous former lead singer, Steve Perry, who parted ways with Journey in 1998.
In a new interview, Schon tells Vulture that he and Perry have had the chance to connect more since he recently took a more active role in Journey’s business dealings.
“We’re talking and getting to know each other again — though not trying to get together musically again,” Schon says. “But he’s learning who I am now, through a portion of our business that I’m kind of controlling now. I’m talking about a Journey trademark that I’ve obtained, as we’ve never owned our own trademark.”
Schon continues, “All these years, many people lied to us [with regard to Journey’s business]. My wife and I finally got to the bottom of it after investigating for years. We were fought hard by everybody, but we managed to obtain the trademark. So we’re talking about that and figuring out the future of that, but we’re talking.”
Schon says that he and Perry were “very, very tight” during Perry’s early years with the band.
“I have great memories of when Steve and I first met,” he notes. “We hung out all the time, man. We were like brothers. We were crazy. We spent a lot of nights out way too late doing things we shouldn’t be doing. Drinking and whatnot … But bottom line, we had a really good time for many, many years … He was a really funny guy.”
Schon also mentions how well he got along with Perry during the 2017 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, adding, “I hope that we can become even better friends in the future.”
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order to strengthen access to reproductive health care in the state on Wednesday.
The order takes several steps to defend the existing services in North Carolina, including to state that patients who receive abortions or providers who perform abortions will not be penalized or criminalized for providing, receiving or inquiring about reproductive health care services.
The executive action comes almost two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed the right to abortion for almost 50 years.
Cooper’s order establishes that all cabinet agencies, or those who are part of the governor’s office, “should coordinate with each other and pursue opportunities to protect people or entities who are providing, assisting, seeking or obtaining lawful reproductive health care services in North Carolina.”
It further states that cabinet agencies may not require any pregnant cabinet agency employee to travel to a state that has restrictions on access to reproductive health care that do not include exceptions favoring the health of the pregnant employee.
The order says it does not change North Carolina law, but rather ensures that North Carolina residents will continue to have a protected right to access and perform abortions, alongside other reproductive care.
As other states uphold bans on abortion, North Carolina increasingly becomes a “critical access point” for those seeking reproductive health services, according to the order.
“Research demonstrates that unnecessary restrictions and bans on reproductive health care rights have harmful consequences on people’s health, safety and economic stability…[and] disproportionately impact people of color, people with disabilities, people with low incomes and people who live in rural areas,” the order reads.
Cooper spoke at a press conference when he signed the order.
“The Supreme Court ripped away the constitutional right to reproductive freedom that women have relied on for five decades,” Cooper said Wednesday.
“For now, it’s up to the states to determine whether women get reproductive health care, and in North Carolina they still can, thanks to my veto and enough legislative votes to sustain it. I am determined to keep it that way and people need to know that their votes in state legislative races this November will determine the fate of women’s health and freedom in our state,” Cooper continued.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, was alongside Cooper at the signing of the executive order.
“Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, North Carolina has become an increasingly critical access point for people traveling for abortion care, including from neighboring South Carolina and Tennessee, where lawmakers in both states have swiftly banned most abortions,” Johnson said at the signing.
“Now we must continue to do everything in our power to ensure abortion remains accessible in North Carolina, both for North Carolinians and those forced to flee their own state amid mounting restrictions and cruel bans,” she added.
In a statement on Wednesday, Cooper said that North Carolina has already seen an influx of patients coming from other states to seek abortion care.
Citing data from Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Cooper said that one third of abortion patients scheduled in North Carolina this week are from different states.
“That means there are projected to be at least 10,000 people coming to North Carolina to access reproductive health care services, mostly from states with bans and tighter restrictions. These are just numbers from Planned Parenthood, and do not include estimates from the state’s other trusted providers,” Cooper said in his statement.
Dr. Katherine Farris, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, was quoted in the governor’s press release Wednesday.
Farris said that the highest priority of abortion providers in North Carolina is to get patients the care that they need.
“Abortion is a normal part of reproductive health care. Every person is the expert in their own life, and we must trust them to make their own decisions about their health, their family, and their future,” Farris said in the statement.
“Planned Parenthood South Atlantic health center doors remain open, and we aren’t going anywhere,” she added.
Jenny Black, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Votes! South Atlantic, said in the release that North Carolina voters need to continue to support candidates that will keep abortion legal in the state.
“For now, abortion is still legal in North Carolina. But our reproductive freedom is hanging by a thread. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has paved the way for state lawmakers to pass an all-out ban as soon as next year,” Black said.
“The future of abortion access not only for North Carolinians but potentially the entire Southeast region is on the line in 2022, and we thank Governor Cooper for his strong advocacy in support of reproductive freedom today,” Black added.
As states have continued to uphold abortion bans across the southeast, other eastern states have signed orders similar to Cooper’s in support of abortion access.
The Democratic governors of Maine and Rhode Island both signed executive orders on Tuesday in support of abortion rights, which ensure the protection of both patients and providers of abortion.
The Republican governor of Massachusetts signed an executive order last month to protect access to abortion in the state, ensuring its legality there.
In South Carolina, abortion has been banned past six weeks. In Tennessee, abortion has also become illegal after six weeks, with no exceptions for rape and incest.
Alabama has made abortion completely illegal, with no exceptions for rape and incest.
Dua Lipa strut the Balenciaga Couture Show catwalk in Paris. Dua donned a canary yellow mini-dress with a cascading train and accessorized with long black opera gloves, black pantyhose and dynamic black heels.
John Mayer‘s father suffered a medical emergency. The singer alerted fans on his Instagram Story that his father was taken to the ER and is “now fairly stable and will continue to undergo some procedures.” John will be staying by his father’s side as he recovers, so he has called off his concert in Saratoga Springs.
Madonna shared some adorable photos she took of her kids during her Fourth of July celebrations. “Last night was fire,” she captioned the snaps of her roasting marshmallows with her kids Mercy James, David Banda, and twins Estere and Stella.
Vanilla Ice is back with a new song, called “Joyburst.” He also kicked up the nostalgia with a very ’90s-inspired music video. The song is now available to stream across all music platforms.
Hungry? Alessia Cara shared her simple recipe for whipped feta dip. She posted a photo of it on her Instagram Story and explained that all you need is feta cheese, paprika, salt, garlic, pepper, parsley, roasted tomatoes, olives, honey, olive oil, pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Unfortunately, she didn’t provide any measurements …
