It appears that the mystery of Nita Strauss‘ new gig has been solved.
After announcing earlier this week that she was leaving her position as Alice Cooper‘s guitarist ahead of the shock-rocker’s upcoming fall tour, Strauss appeared on Thursday’s episode of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! alongside Demi Lovato.
Strauss joined Lovato to perform their new song called “Substance,” which will appear on the pop star’s upcoming rock-influenced, guitar-driven album Holy F***, due out August 19.
Strauss has not yet publicly commented on her new gig with Lovato, though she appeared to reference it Friday in an Instagram Story featuring a video of the classic Monty Python catchphrase, “And now for something completely different.”
When initially announcing her departure from Cooper’s band, Strauss shared that her “touring year is still VERY full,” suggesting that she’ll also join Lovato’s band on the road. That has yet to be confirmed.
Outside of her work in Cooper’s band, Strauss released her debut solo album, the instrumental Controlled Chaos, in 2018. Her 2021 solo single “Dead Inside,” which features vocals by Disturbed‘s David Draiman, became the first song by a solo female artist to hit #1 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart in 32 years.
Stewart Copeland, the arrestingly kinetic drummer of The Police, celebrates his 70th birthday this Saturday, July 16.
Born in Alexandria, Virginia, Copeland grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, where his CIA agent father was stationed. He later moved to England, and in 1974 he became the drummer of the prog-rock band Curved Air.
After Curved Air broke up in 1976, Copeland formed The Police the following year with singer/bassist Gordon Sumner, a.k.a. Sting, and guitarist Henry Padovani. Guitarist Andy Summers joined as a fourth member later in ’77, and Padovani exited the group soon after.
Offering up a captivating mix of punk, reggae, pop, rock, jazz and world music influences, The Police soon became one of the most popular bands on the planet.
While Sting was the group’s main songwriter, Copeland wrote or co-wrote at least one song on every Police album. His most significant contributions came on 1979’s Regatta de Blanc, which featured six tracks that he wrote or co-wrote.
While with The Police, Copeland released some solo singles and an album under the pseudonym Klark Kent. In 1982, he composed the soundtrack to the Francis Ford Coppola-directed film Rumble Fish.
After The Police broke up in 1986, Copeland worked on many film soundtracks, including Talk Radio and Wall Street.
Stewart also has played in such collaborative projects as Animal Logic, with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer/songwriter Deborah Holland; Oysterhead, with Primus‘ Les Claypool and Phish‘s Trey Anastasio; and Gizmodrome, with ex-King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew and Level 42‘s Mark King.
In 2003, Copeland was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Police. In 2007-2008, the band reunited for a massively successful world tour.
In recent years, Copeland has composed several operas. In 2021, he won a Best New Age album Grammy for Divine Tides, a collaboration with Indian-music composer Ricky Kej.
Paramore has announced a run of U.S. headlining shows for the fall.
The outing, which marks the “Hard Times” trio’s first tour live performances since 2018, kicks off October 2 in Bakersfield, California and will wrap up November 16 in St. Augustine, Florida.
Tickets go on sale next Friday, July 22 at 10 a.m. local time. You can register for a chance at presale tickets via Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program now through Sunday, July 17 at 10 p.m. PT.
Along with the headlining dates, Paramore will be playing a number of festivals this fall, including When We Were Young and Austin City Limits.
For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit Paramore.net.
Paramore’s most recent album is 2017’s After Laughter. The band revealed in a Rolling Stone interview earlier this year that they were back in the studio working on a follow-up.
Meanwhile, frontwoman Hayley Williams has released two solo albums: 2020’s Petals for Armor and 2021’s Flowers for Vases/Descansos.
Black Label Society‘s Zakk Wylde and Anthrax‘s Charlie Benante will be stepping in for the late Abbott brothers on the upcoming Pantera reunion tour, Billboard reports.
Wylde will be playing guitar in place of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, while Benante will be manning drummer Vinnie Paul‘s spot behind the kit. They’ll join surviving Pantera members vocalist Phil Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown, who, as Billboard reported earlier this week, are reforming the metal outfit for a 2023 tour.
Dime was murdered on stage in 2004, while his older brother Vinnie died in 2018 of a heart condition. The estates of both brothers gave a “green light” to the new lineup, according to Billboard.
The reported tour will mark the first Pantera live shows since the band broke up in 2003.
Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Secret Service deleted text messages from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, after an internal watchdog requested them as part of a review of the department’s handling of last year’s Capitol riot, the watchdog said this week.
A letter sent Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General to the heads of the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees, which was obtained by ABC News, said the messages were deleted “as part of a device-replacement program” despite the inspector general requesting such communications.
“First, the Department notified us that many US Secret Service text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, were erased as part of a device-replacement program. The USSS erased those text messages after OIG requested records of electronic communications from the USSS, as part of our evaluation of events at the Capitol on January 6,” Joseph Cuffari, the inspector general, wrote.
“Second, DHS personnel have repeatedly told OIG inspectors that they were not permitted to provide records directly to OIG and that such records had to first undergo review by DHS attorneys,” Cuffari wrote. “This review led to weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and created confusion over whether all records had been produced.”
The director of communications at the US Secret Service, Anthony Guglielmi, said any insinuation the service intentionally deleted texts is false in a statement Thursday evening.
“The insinuation that the Secret Service maliciously deleted text messages following a request is false. In fact, the Secret Service has been fully cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) in every respect – whether it be interviews, documents, emails, or texts,” the statement said.
The statement continued that the Secret Service “began to reset its mobile phones to factory settings as part of a pre-planned, three-month system migration. In that process, data resident on some phones was lost,” and that DHS OIG requested electronic communications for the first time on Feb. 26, 2021, after the migration was underway. The agency added that OIG was notified of certain data missing.
The Secret Service also refuted the notion that they were not being cooperative with the DHS investigation.
“To the contrary, DHS OIG has previously alleged that its employees were not granted appropriate and timely access to materials due to attorney review. DHS has repeatedly and publicly debunked this allegation, including in response to OIG’s last two semi-annual reports to Congress. It is unclear why OIG is raising this issue again,” the statement said.
Ohio’s Rob Portman, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said he was “deeply concerned” over the letter.
“I am deeply concerned by the letter I received from the DHS Inspector General documenting the Department’s delays in producing materials to the Inspector General and its deletion of records following requests by the Inspector General. It is essential that the Department be transparent with its inspector general, Congress, and the American public,” he said in a statement.
The DHS has not yet responded for comment.
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the chairman of the committee, echoed that.
“We need to get to the bottom of whether the Secret Service destroyed federal records or the Department of Homeland Security obstructed oversight,” Peters said in a statement. “The DHS Inspector General needs these records to do its independent oversight and the public deserves to have a full picture of what occurred on January 6th. I will be learning more from the DHS Inspector General about these concerning allegations.”
It is unclear whether the messages were deleted intentionally or by accident, though the inspector general’s letter comes as the Secret Service is once again under heightened scrutiny following hearings from the House committee investigating the insurrection.
Recent testimony suggested that former President Donald Trump tried to join his supporters in marching from the Ellipse to the Capitol last year but was stopped by the Secret Service. The agency has since said it will respond on the record to that testimony.
(NEW YORK) — Depositions of former President Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in connection with the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into the family’s businesses practices have been delayed, the New York Attorney General’s Office said Friday.
The AG’s office said the postponement was due to the death of Ivana Trump, the former president’s ex-wife and the mother of Ivanka and Donald Jr., on Thursday.
“In light of the passing of Ivana Trump yesterday, we received a request from counsel for Donald Trump and his children to adjourn all three depositions, which we have agreed to,” the office said in a statement. “This is a temporary delay and the depositions will be rescheduled as soon as possible. There is no other information about dates or otherwise to provide at this time.”
“We offer our condolences to the Trump family,” the statement added.
The New York Attorney General’s Office has been investigating potential discrepancies in how the Trump Organization valued certain assets when seeking loans or when pursuing tax breaks.
Trump has long denied any wrongdoing in the yearslong investigation.
The Trumps had sought to squash the AG’s subpoenas to testify on the grounds that they were politically motivated, but last month New York’s highest court declined to take up an appeal by the family, thereby obligating the Trumps to sit for depositions in the probe.
Ivana Trump died Thursday at her home in New York City at the age of 73. She was found unconscious and unresponsive at the bottom of a set of stairs in her Upper East Side apartment, according to police sources. A medical examiner will determine the cause of death, police said.
She and Donald Trump were married in 1977 and divorced in 1992.
(NEW YORK) — Depositions of former President Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in connection with the New York attorney general’s civil investigation have been delayed, the New York Attorney General’s Office said Friday.
The AG’s office said the postponement was due to the death of Ivana Trump, the former president’s ex-wife and the mother of Ivanka and Donald Jr., on Thursday.
“In light of the passing of Ivana Trump yesterday, we received a request from counsel for Donald Trump and his children to adjourn all three depositions, which we have agreed to,” the office said in a statement. “This is a temporary delay and the depositions will be rescheduled as soon as possible. There is no other information about dates or otherwise to provide at this time.”
“We offer our condolences to the Trump family,” the statement added.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — As a slew of historic challenges pile up on Joe Biden’s presidency, he faces increasing dissatisfaction from within his own party and questions about his electability just months before crucial midterm elections.
Historic, global inflation and high gas prices have driven his popularity to lows that could threaten Democrats’ chances of retaining control of Congress this fall.
Amid calls from activists for Biden to show more urgency on issues such as abortion and gun reform, the White House has fired back, calling those who want more action on abortion “out of step.”
But a wide majority of Democrats in a New York Times/Siena College poll published this week – 64% – said that they want someone other than Biden to represent them in the 2024 presidential election.
Among those Democrats, the top reason they wanted another standard-bearer was because of Biden’s age (33%), followed by his job performance (32%). Further down the list, 4% cited his ability to win, and 3% pointed to his mental acuity.
Questions of age
At 79, Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history, and his age has drawn concerns from not just within his own party but from across the aisle — with nonstop negative coverage in conservative media of his perceived gaffes and constant questions about his mental fitness.
Fox News hosts constantly portray the president as a feeble, elderly man as they play short video clips they say show him looking confused at events, mixing up words and relying on notecards with basic instructions, like, “You take your seat.” (Former President Donald Trump used similar notes.)
While those attacks are amplified through Fox News’ partisan lens, Biden clearly lacks the energy he had as a younger vice president and senator before that, often walking in a halting manner and frequently tripping over his words.
In 2018, before he launched his most recent campaign for president, Biden said it was “totally legitimate” for voters to consider a candidate’s age and “what kind of shape you’re in,” CNN reported at the time.
“I think it’s totally appropriate for people to look at me and say if I were to run for office again, ‘Well, God darn, you’re old,'” he said, according to CNN. “Well, chronologically I am old.”
A White House official said aides “far younger” than Biden “have to fight to keep up” with the president, who works late into the night and “never takes a day off, wherever he is.”
“We see him throw himself into the hardest parts of the job,” the official said, noting Biden recently spent “hours comforting families” of victims of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.
Fired-up Biden tells ABC: ‘They want me to run’
In an impassioned exchange with ABC News this week, Biden defended his popularity among Democrats, noting that the same New York Times/Siena College poll showed that if he ended up facing off against former President Donald Trump in 2024, 92% of Democrats said they’d vote for Biden.
And among all voters, the poll found, Biden would best Trump by 44% to 41%.
When asked by this reporter what his message was to Democrats who do not want him to run again, Biden replied, “They want me to run.”
“Read the polls,” he responded, fired up and changing direction. “Read the polls, Jack. You guys are all the same. That poll showed that 92% of Democrats, if I ran, would vote for me.”
This reporter pointed out that most Democrats surveyed did, in fact, say they wanted someone else to run.
“But 92% said if I did, they’d vote for me,” Biden shot back, before walking away.
The president told ABC News in December he plans to run for reelection. “If I’m in the health I’m in now — from a good health, and, in fact, I would run again,” he said then.
Vice President Kamala Harris, too, has made clear she would run with him.
Biden’s message: Vote
In the wake of Supreme Court setbacks for abortion rights, gun restrictions and climate change, progressive activists — and many of their allies in Congress — have vocally called on Biden to take more drastic measures to protects Americans’ rights.
His message? Vote for Democrats in the November midterms.
“This fall, Roe is on the ballot,” he said the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month. “Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot.”
While Biden has used his bully pulpit to speak out forcefully on these topics, he and his advisers insist they are hamstrung by legal limitations on what they can do — especially when it comes to protecting access to abortion.
His outgoing communications director, Kate Bedingfield, blasted activists who have been critical of Biden’s response to the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which found women do not have a constitutional right to an abortion.
“Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party,” she said in a statement to The Washington Post earlier this week that ignited blowback from progressives. “It’s to deliver help to women who are in danger and assemble a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as he assembled such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign.”
At a news conference in Madrid last month, a reporter asked Biden if he was the best messenger to fight for abortion rights when his own views on abortion had evolved over the years. Many progressives want him to do more, the reporter noted.
“I’m the only president they got,” Biden replied, “and I feel extremely strongly that I’m going to do everything in my power which I legally can do in terms of executive orders, as well as push the Congress and the public.”
But he also said “the bottom line” is that people should “show up and vote.”
“Vote in the off-year and vote, vote, vote,” Biden said. “That’s how we’ll change it.”
Young Democratic candidates speak of disconnect with party
But the New York Times/Siena College poll showed younger Democrats, in particular, want a nominee other than Biden in 2024, with 94% of Democrats under 30 years old expressing that sentiment.
One millennial Democrat running to represent the Nashville, Tennessee, area in Congress, Odessa Kelly, told ABC News she traced those young Democrats’ apprehensiveness to a more deeply rooted disappointment that began before Biden assumed office.
As the founder of the nonprofit Stand Up Nashville, Kelly recounted distributing more than 300 food boxes per day to people “who still had their work uniforms on because they were coming in between work shifts to survive another day.” Among them, she said, were elementary school staff, including younger teachers who requested food supplies for their families and classrooms.
“The Democratic Party always talks about helping the next generation, but I noticed that the caretakers of children are all struggling paycheck to paycheck,” Kelly said.
She said economic pressures became especially acute in Nashville during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The people of Nashville are at their breaking points,” she said. “I understand when people say it feels like we haven’t elected people who come from these shared experiences we got.”
Another millennial Democrat running for Congress in Texas, Greg Casar, told ABC News he thought the disconnect younger voters are feeling stems from a generational difference on how to tackle salient political issues, such as climate change.
“So many Gen Z voters don’t want to just wait for things to somehow get better,” Casar, who is currently an Austin City Council member, said. “Younger voters want action. That is the kind of energy that is so often lacking in our politics.”
Both candidates back Biden – Kelly said she’d “vote for Biden any day over Trump” – with some reservations. Casar urged Biden to move faster to protect abortion access.
“Texans can’t just sit and wait for another election while their healthcare is being denied,” he said. “The president can speak urgently, but he needs to act more with that same urgency to help voters of color.”
Governors push for action — and spark 2024 speculation
Amid the Democratic discontent with Biden, other Democrats have stirred chatter of potential 2024 runs.
Biden says he’ll run again, but that hasn’t stopped speculation California Gov. Gavin Newsom may have ambitions for higher office, although on Wednesday he emphatically said would back a Biden bid in 2024.
Newsom, though, has criticized Democratic leaders for not confronting Republicans more aggressively. And this week, he visited Washington, where he delivered a speech where he spoke about national issues.
And Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who traveled to New Hampshire last month to campaign for Democrats and pitch Chicago as a 2024 presidential nominating convention site — and plans to fundraise for Florida Democrats this weekend — has fueled chatter he has higher aspirations. (He has insisted that he’s focused on his re-election as governor.)
After a shooting on the Fourth of July left seven dead in Highland Park, Illinois, Pritzker’s intense, confrontational response garnered widespread praise.
“If you’re angry today, I’m here to tell you be angry,” he said that day. “I’m furious. I’m furious that yet more innocent lives were taken by gun violence. I’m furious that their loved ones are forever broken by what took place today.”
Biden’s first public comments on the shooting were brief and did not mention Highland Park by name.
“You all heard what happened today,” he told an Independence Day gathering outside the White House. “But each day, we’re reminded there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy, nothing guaranteed about our way of life. We have to fight for it, defend it, and earn it by voting to refine, evolve, and extend the calling of America to move forward boldly and unafraid.”
Two hours later, he decided to speak again, mentioning the city’s name, noting he had spoken with Pritzker and the mayor, and calling for a moment of silence. “We’ve got a lot more work to do,” he said. “We’ve got to get this under control.”
Pritzker met with Biden at the White House earlier this week when he was in town for an event marking the recent passage of gun safety legislation. He told reporters they did not discuss politics.
On Capitol Hill, a defense of Biden — while others block his agenda
Few Democrats on Capitol Hill are willing to publicly question whether Biden should run again in 2024, although progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, often call on him to act with greater urgency.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California who has criticized Biden in the past, said recently that, as president and leader of the Democratic Party, Biden is “owed a degree of respect.”
“There’s a tone in which to challenge the administration and offer new ideas,” Khanna tweeted last week, “and that tone ought to be one of good faith to help the president, not throwing darts to weaken him when he’s the leader of our party.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, has forcefully defended the president throughout his time in office.
“I wouldn’t waste my time on figuring out how enthusiastic this White House is about a woman’s right to choose,” she said Thursday. “They’re there.”
In the fact of setbacks, the president has responded with a call not just to elect more Democrats — but for Congress to take action.
Even though his party controls both chambers of Congress, Democrats’ majority in the House is narrow, and their 50-50 split with Republicans in the Senate has meant Biden has failed to achieve the 60 votes necessary to further most of his legislative priorities.
Senate Democrats could change the rules to require just a simple majority to move legislation forward, but Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema have blocked that effort.
Manchin has also stood in the way of Biden’s attempts to force his major “Build Back Better” package – that would make massive investments in health care, education, fighting climate change and other Democratic domestic goals.
Biden has frequently lamented the tough spot he’s in.
“When you’re in the United States Senate, and you’re president of the United States, and you have 50 Democrats,” he joked during a CNN town hall last year, “every one is a president.”
ABC News’ Alina Kim and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.
(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:
Jul 15, 10:01 AM EDT
Grandma of 4-year-old girl killed in missile strike: ‘I hate them all’
The grandmother of a 4-year-old girl killed in Thursday’s Russian missile attack in Vinnytsia told ABC News, “They took the most precious [person] I had in my life.”
Four-year-old Liza was among 23 people, including three children, killed in the strike.
Liza’s grandmother, Larysa Dmytryshyna, called her a “wonderfully sunny child.”
“She was the most wonderful girl in the world and it is so painful that her mother cannot even bury her,” she said.
Asked how she feels about Russia, Dmytryshyna, replied, “I hate them all.”
“We did not ask them to come here. They have caused so much sorrow,” she said of the Russians. “I would give my own life to extinguish the entire country.”
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Ibtissem Guenfoud and Natalya Kushnir
Jul 15, 9:04 AM EDT
Demand for artificial limbs surges in Ukraine
One of Ukraine’s leading medical experts on developing prosthetic limbs for amputees says there has been a dramatic surge in demand for artificial arms and legs since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Dr. Oleksandr Stetsenko told ABC News that financial support or donations of prosthetic parts are needed from abroad to meet the increased demand.
External support, he said, is vital so that people have the chance to continue with their lives.
“With good prosthetics people can come back to life again,” Stetsenko told ABC News.
There is currently no official figure for how many people in Ukraine have undergone surgery to remove limbs because of injuries sustained from the war but Dr. Stetsenko estimates that around 500 people have had limbs amputated since the end of February with the majority of those cases being soldiers and around a fifth being civilians.
While the number of patients in Ukraine needing artificial limbs has increased, the domestic supply of components to make prosthetic arms and legs has reduced.
That is because a third of the companies which were previously producing components in Ukraine are now located in territory which has recently been occupied by Russian forces or in areas near to the frontline, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
A director at the health ministry, Oleksandra Mashkevych, confirmed that Ukraine is no longer able “to cover all of the demand relating to artificial limbs.”
Mashkevych told ABC News that children who need artificial limbs are sent abroad to Europe or to the United States and that around 20 children in Ukraine are thought to have had limbs amputated since the start of the war in February.
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Ibtissem Guenfoud, Natalya Kushnir and Kuba Kaminski
Jul 15, 6:49 AM EDT
Unprecedented rescue operation underway in Vinnytsia
At least 18 people are still missing after a deadly missile strike on downtown Vinnytsia in central Ukraine on Thursday, the Ukrainian National Police said.
Three Russian Kalibr missiles launched from a submarine struck an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, located about 155 miles southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Thursday morning.
At least 23 people — including 3 children — died in the attack, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said, and more than a 100 were wounded, some critically. The bodies of 2 children and 11 adults were yet to be identified on Friday morning, local authorities said.
The strike in the heart of Vinnytsia is “part of a systematic Russian campaign of attacks on residential areas of cities in Ukraine”, the Institute for the Study of War said.
The search continued on Friday morning for at least 18 people who were still missing after the attack. The ongoing rescue operation has been unprecedented in its scale, local officials said, with more than 1,000 rescuers and 200 pieces of equipment being involved in clearing the rubble and searching for those still missing.
Several dozen people were reportedly detained in Vinnytsia on Thursday for questioning under the suspicion of acting as local spotters or aimers on the ground for the Russian strikes.
The eastern city of Mykolaiv also reported 10 powerful explosions on Friday morning. The city’s two biggest universities were hit in the attack, wounding at least four people, local authorities said. Russia also struck a hotel and a shopping mall in Mykolaiv on Thursday.
Russian shelling also targeted Kharkiv, another eastern city, on Thursday night. Local officials claimed 2 schools were damaged in the attack.
The European Union and the United Nations strongly condemned Russia for what the EU called a “long series of brutal attacks against civilians.”
Russia’s missile strikes hit more than 17,000 facilities of civilian infrastructure as opposed to around 300 military facilities since the start of the war, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Fidel Pavlenko and Yuriy Zaliznyak
Jul 14, 4:02 PM EDT
Russian missile strike kills at least 23 in Vinnytsia
Russian missiles hit the heart of the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Thursday morning, killing at least 23 people and wounding dozens, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.
Three children were among the dead, the agency said.
The missiles struck an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, located about 155 miles southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The strike also ignited a massive fire that engulfed 50 cars in an adjacent parking lot, according to the National Police of Ukraine. Burned-out vehicles are peppered with holes from the missiles.
The State Emergency Service said about 115 victims in Vinnytsia needed medical attention, with 64 people hospitalized — including 34 in severe condition and five in critical.
Forty-two people are listed as missing, the agency said.
Many Ukrainians moved to Vinnytsia, a city southwest of Kyiv, to get away from the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Until now, Vinnytsia had been seen as a city of relative safety.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “an open act of terrorism” on civilians.
“Every day Russia is destroying the civilian population, killing Ukrainian children, directing missiles at civilian objects. Where there is no military (targets). What is it if not an open act of terrorism?” Zelenskyy said in a statement via Telegram on Thursday.
War crimes investigators are at the scene studying missile fragments.
Russian missile strikes targeted several other Ukrainian cities on Wednesday and early Thursday, including Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv.
At least 12 people died in the Zaporizhia strike, which hit two industrial workshops on Wednesday, according to local authorities.
At least five civilians were killed and 30 others injured in Mykolaiv on Wednesday after Russian missiles destroyed a hotel and a shopping mall, the local mayor said. The southern Ukrainian city was shelled again on Thursday morning, but no casualties were immediately reported.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Fidel Pavlenko, Max Uzol, and Yulia Drozd
Jul 14, 1:49 PM EDT
At least 18 Russian filtration camps along Russia-Ukraine border
Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, is calling the forcible relocation of Ukrainians to Russian filtration camps is “a war crime.”
In an interview with ABC News Live on Thursday, Carpenter said the Russians are “trying to take away Ukrainians who might have Ukrainian civic impulses, who are patriots, who want to defend their country.” Carpenter said the Russians want to “erase Ukrainian identity” and “the Ukrainian nation state, as the entity that governs people’s lives in these regions.”
Carpenter said there are at least 18 filtration camps along the Russia-Ukraine border, adding that it’s impossible to get an exact total because many are located in Russia’s far east.
-ABC News’ Malka Abramoff
Jul 14, 12:04 PM EDT
Russian missile strike kills at least 17 in Vinnytsia
Russian missiles hit the heart of the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Thursday morning, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 30 others, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.
Two children were among the dead, the prosecutor’s office said.
The missiles struck an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, located about 155 miles southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The strike also ignited a massive fire that engulfed 50 cars in an adjacent parking lot, according to the National Police of Ukraine. Burned-out vehicles are peppered with holes from the missiles.
The national police said about 90 victims in Vinnytsia sought medical attention, and 50 of them are in serious condition.
Many Ukrainians moved to Vinnytsia, a city southwest of Kyiv, to get away from the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Until now, Vinnytsia had been seen as a city of relative safety.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “an open act of terrorism” on civilians.
“Every day Russia is destroying the civilian population, killing Ukrainian children, directing missiles at civilian objects. Where there is no military (targets). What is it if not an open act of terrorism?” Zelenskyy said in a statement via Telegram on Thursday.
War crimes investigators are at the scene studying missile fragments.
Russian missile strikes targeted several other Ukrainian cities on Wednesday and early Thursday, including Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv.
At least 12 people died in the Zaporizhia strike, which hit two industrial workshops on Wednesday, according to local authorities.
At least five civilians were killed and 30 others injured in Mykolaiv on Wednesday after Russian missiles destroyed a hotel and a shopping mall, the local mayor said. The southern Ukrainian city was shelled again on Thursday morning, but no casualties were immediately reported.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Fidel Pavlenko, Max Uzol, and Yulia Drozd
Jul 13, 6:30 PM EDT
State Department aware of reports on another American detained by Russian proxies
The State Department said Wednesday it is aware of unconfirmed reports that another American has been detained by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.
The statement follows a [report from the Guardian] () on 35-year-old Suedi Murekezi, who is believed to have gone missing in Ukraine in early June.
According to the Guardian, Murekezi was able to make contact with a family member on July 7 and told them he was being held in the same prison as Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, two American veterans captured while volunteering for Ukrainian forces. Murekezi has lived in Ukraine since 2020 and was falsely accused of participating in pro-Ukraine protests, according to the report.
“We have been in contact with the Ukrainian and Russian authorities regarding U.S. citizens who may have been captured by Russia’s forces or proxies while fighting in Ukraine,” a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday. “We call on Russia to live up to its international obligations to treat all individuals captured fighting with Ukraine’s armed forces as prisoners of war.”
Another American — Grady Kurpasi — is also missing in Ukraine. A family spokesperson said the veteran was last seen fighting with Ukrainian forces in late April and is feared to have been either killed or captured.
-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Jul 13, 8:27 AM EDT
Shelling continues throughout Donbas region
Shelling from both Russian and Ukrainian forces caused damage to the landscape and destroyed structures throughout the Donbas region on Tuesday and Wednesday, local officials said.
Russian strikes reportedly targeted the eastern town of Bakhmut, killing one person and wounding 5 others, the local governor said. Explosions were heard in several nearby towns too, with one missile falling near a kindergarten.
Shelling also continued in Izyum, Mykolayiv and Kharkiv on Tuesday. Russian troops reportedly conducted unsuccessful attacks north of Slovyansk and the town of Siversk on Tuesday, despite repeated rhetoric of an “operational pause” that Russia allegedly maintains, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest report.
Russian forces continue to bomb critical areas in preparation for future ground offensive, with air and artillery strikes reported along the majority of the frontline, the experts added.
Ukrainian forces on Tuesday responded to the Russian attacks and claimed to have destroyed six Russian military facilities on occupied Ukrainian territories. Ukrainian officials claimed to have destroyed several ammunition depots, as well as a larger military unit.
Russian media reported on Tuesday that Ukrainian troops launched a “massive attack” on an air defense unit in the Luhansk region.
Ukrainian military officials also claimed to have killed at least 30 Russian troops on Tuesday, along with destroying a howitzer and a multiple rocket launcher, among other weaponry.
But the U.K. Defense Ministry in its latest intelligence update said it still expects Russian forces to “focus on taking several small towns during the coming weeks” in the Donbas region.
These towns are on the approaches to the larger cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk that likely remain the principal objectives for this phase of the Russian military operation, the ministry said.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Yulia Drozd and Yuriy Zaliznyak
Jul 12, 10:27 PM EDT
US transfers $1.7 billion in economic assistance to Ukrainian government
The United States transferred $1.7 billion to Ukraine’s government Tuesday, the Treasury Department announced.
It’s the second tranche of money the Treasury transferred to Ukraine’s government as part of $7.5 billion approved for this purpose in the $40 billion Ukraine aid package Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law in May.
It’ll go, in part, to helping Ukraine’s government provide “essential health care services” and health care workers’ salaries, the Treasury Department said.
The U.S. transferred the first tranche, $1.3 billion, to Ukraine’s government two weeks ago.
-ABC News Benjamin Gittleson
Jul 12, 1:59 AM EDT
Ukraine destroys Russian ammo depot in occupied Kherson region
Ukrainian forces hit and likely destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in the Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region on Monday night, local officials said.
The strike resulted in a massive blast, videos of which soon circulated online. According to local reports, more than 40 trucks filled with gasoline were destroyed. Russian media didn’t verify the claims, saying instead that pro-Russian forces had destroyed a series of saltpeter warehouses.
“People’s windows are blown out, but they are still happy … because this means that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are close,” Sergey Khlan, from the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in the aftermath of the attack.
Monday’s strike marked at least the fourth time Ukrainian forces destroyed ammunition depots in Nova Kakhovka, local media reported.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Tatiana Rymarenko, Max Uzol and Yulia Drozd
This time, Ye returned to update his 16.2 million followers on what he did earlier this week on what would have been his mother’s 73rd birthday.
“On my moms birthday I was able for the first time to sit in on a Gap call with Bob Martin, Bob Fisher and other leads of the company,” Ye shared in an Instagram post on Thursday, alongside a photo of Martin, Gap Inc. chairman and interim CEO.
“Bob Martin was one of the most inspiring people I’ve heard speak in business. He kept saying go to the stores on the call. I came to Gap to put good product directly in stores,” Kanye continued, noting that Gap has experienced two of the “biggest sales days” since collaborating with the Donda rapper.
“We sold 14 million dollars worth of the perfect black hoodie at 80 dollars a hoodie off of a television commercial that was ran one time. I came to Gap to bring good quality products to the people at all times,” Ye said. “Bob I need to meet with you as soon as possible.”
Kanye’s mother, Donda West, would have turned 73 on Tuesday. She died in 2007 from heart disease and complications following cosmetic surgery. She was 58.
