(ROCHESTER, N.Y.) — A captain of the Rochester Fire Department who was accused of taking firefighters to a party filled with racist tropes has retired.
Following an investigation by the City of Rochester, Capt. Jeffrey Krywy was forced to leave the department by the city, Mayor Malik Evans announced Tuesday, according to ABC News Rochester affiliate WHAM.
“As of Monday, he has chosen to retire before termination proceedings begin,” Evans said in a statement to WHAM.
Last week, Jerrod Jones sued the City of Rochester and Rochester Fire Department, accusing Krywy of forcing him and two other firefighters to attend a private party on July 7.
According to the lawsuit, Jones said that when he arrived at the party, he saw a large cut-out of former President Donald Trump and buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken next to Juneteenth flags.
Jones alleged that the Mary Znidarsic-Nicosia, who owned the home where the party was being held, approached him and asked if he wanted to take home the fried chicken.
He also claims that there was an entertainer at the party impersonating Democratic Monroe County Legislator Rachel Barnhart and there was a senior member of the Rochester Police officer at the party.
Nate McMurray, Jones’ lawyer, took to Twitter on Tuesday, criticizing the incident, saying that an independent investigation hasn’t happened yet.
McMurray also criticized Krywy’s retirement because he presumably retired with his full pension.
McMurray did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Jones said that he told acting Battalion Chief George Smith about the incident and Krywy’s involvement and was told it’d be looked into but was assigned to work with Krywy during his following shift, court documents show.
Jones claimed he’s suffering emotional distress, fears that he will be retaliated against by Krywy and others and is currently on leave from the RFD, according to the lawsuit.
(NEW YORK) — Award-winning restaurateur Michael Scelfo has run kitchens post-9/11 and through the 2008 economic downturn, but he said the COVID-19 pandemic and soaring inflation have brought on prolonged issues businesses are still trying to figure out.
“What’s so different this time around is it’s this sustained, evolving-downward spiral since March of 2020 when things hit the fan with COVID and the shutdown,” Scelfo told Good Morning America. “What we’re left with is the economic rubble of the aftermath.”
Restaurant owners are accustomed to dynamic changes, but even industry veterans like Scelfo said, “it feels like we’re continually taking punches and not necessarily getting the relief that we expected.”
And problems that began at the onset of the pandemic — mandated restaurant closures, safety restrictions, staffing shortages and broken supply chains — have been exacerbated by rising costs on food, fuel and materials, failed federal relief packages and inflation, experts said.
Soaring inflation hits cost of ingredients
Food prices have outpaced the overall inflation rate, which is up nearly 11% year-over-year in July, according to the latest data from Bureau of Labor Statistics. Common restaurant staple ingredients like flour — when purchased in a U.S. city — rose 22% in the last year, while eggs have increased 38%.
“It all trickles down to what the baseline cost of whatever the product is,” Scelfo said. “If you’re paying more for it on the home front, you can be assured that we’re paying more.”
Scelfo, who has not passed along increases to his guests, looks at that as a last resort.
“I don’t want to raise prices on the consumer any more than I have to because I’m sensitive to it too. And I do think there’s a limit to what you can realistically charge,” he said. “If you’re a restaurant that’s operating on thin margins, you’re really probably up against it right now — there’s kind of this feast or famine out there for restaurants who have the means to navigate this period.”
“Inflation is having a tremendous impact on everyone across the board,” Leslie Silverglide, co-founder of California casual restaurant chains Split and Mixt, told GMA. “[We’ve tried to] hold price as much as possible,” she added, and “be smarter about how we run our business.”
Food shortages, costs impact menus and availability
Brooklyn-based chef-owner Sal Lamboglia of the newly opened Italian hotspot, Cafe Spaghetti, thinks customers may relate more than ever to the challenges of rising food costs as they shift their own spending on groceries.
“So many things that we use that aren’t even specialty items — eggs, milk, cream, butter – have gone up 10, 20 30% — I’m sure every restaurant is going through this, but I also feel also for the diner,” he said. “It’s scary because I don’t know if things will make their way down again.”
And he said Lamboglia’s menu has taken a hit.
“We’ve been getting shorted on certain pastas, and certain grains and flour — I’ve had to actually change a brand of pasta,” he said. “[We] go back to the drawing board each time and say, ‘OK, how valuable is this dish with this exact pasta? Can we change the shape? Are people going to like it? And that’s what we deal with now. It’s a lot.”
Chef David Nayfeld, owner of Che Fico and Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC) board member, told GMA that some think inflation is “just now happening.” “Our costs have been rising steadily and aggressively for nearly two years,” he said.
“We’ve decided to actually lean into quality,” Nayfeld said. “It may mean that people will dine out less,” but he believes diners will choose restaurants “based on quality.”
He also hopes the decision to spend more on employees, products and farms will ensure the support of key players who share his values to “offer a better quality of product to our guests, knowing that they’re smart enough to know the difference.”
Paying for quality labor impacts every facet of the supply chain: “If nobody is there to support and prop the supply chain up, [it] will collapse,” he said. … when we believe in product and believe in farms — we need to support them.”
New strategies to stay afloat
Jake Dickson, owner of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats — a butchery, restaurant and bar — called “huge increases in labor costs, packaging costs and meat inputs” a “triple whammy” over the last six months.
“Our labor costs per head were up 30%,” he told GMA of the overhead and “first punch” at the start of the pandemic. “And that’s pretty tough in a business where labor costs are already massive.”
Where Dickson was initially “insulated from food cost increases” and able to keep meat prices steady thanks to longstanding relationships with purveyors, he said “unfortunately, those things don’t hold right now.”
“Our farmers’ costs are now going through the roof,” he said, noting fertilizer and fuel costs have prompted higher prices.
“They don’t want to increase prices on us because they don’t want me to buy less and they know that if I raise my prices, we’ll probably sell less,” Dickson said.
Four months ago, he made a “very purposeful decision to add a beer and wine license,” opening a bar that serves as “a high margin business” to offset other new costs.
“We’ve kept either small increases or no increases in many places because the bar’s margins are so much higher,” he said, hailing it “a bulwark.”
He also strategized his labor costs.
“Now they’re pretty much flat because we made a choice to pay our employees really well then and we haven’t had to keep giving raises — we’re very competitive — now we’re just kind of figuring out all the other pieces.”
Adapting to skyrocketing expenses
In 17 years of opening restaurants across California, Texas and Arizona, Silverglide said her growing list of challenges has been unlike any other.
“We joke that it’s like Whac-A-Mole. We solve one thing, then something else pops up,” she said. “Especially as we’re looking to build out new restaurants, we’re finding it really hard to just get standard equipment — we place the orders and then as we get closer, they’re like, ‘Oh, actually, it’s gonna be another four to six months.'”
“It’s a hard place to be running a restaurant today,” Silverglide told GMA.
Lamboglia thinks restaurants can strike a balance by offsetting expensive entree lists with a section of the menu that’s affordable.
“At least giving the guests the option not to feel like, ‘Wow, I almost can’t even go out to eat because it’s just too much,” he said.
Rather than constantly revising menu prices as inflation rose to 7% this spring, Leslie Whitney, the owner of Sunset Grill in Virginia, told GMA she and her husband decided on a “temporary fix” to add an “inflation fee” of 3.5% to diners’ checks.
“As food prices were literally rising and changing every day … we had to do something to recoup some of the money loss,” she said. Although the flat fee won’t cover all their new costs, they are “simply trying to stop the bleed.”
Staffing has been one of the “lasting effects of COVID” that Whitney has grappled with.
“We can fluctuate with rising food prices, but not having appropriate staff really puts a wrench in our operations of service — we’re constantly trying to hire where we are short staffed,” she said. “Back-of-the house positions are the hardest to hire because we have high expectations and aren’t willing to cut corners in knowledge and experience.”
A push for federal funding
“The one big player here that has not done enough is the government,” Nayfeld said. “[The government] has had the ability with multiple bills to refill the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which would really do a tremendous amount – not just for now, but for a couple of years, making sure that these restaurants can stabilize.”
Scelfo, who applied and said he never received money from the bill that was part of the American Rescue Plan, added that the “RRF only funded maybe a third or half of restaurants that applied for it and they’ve still never replenished that.”
Despite the constant battering, resilience has created a resounding sense of gratitude and respect in the industry.
“To look for a positive in all this, I’ve never been more proud of our teams,” Scelfo said of the staff who continuously rises to the occasion.
“Restaurants are continuing to find a way to provide a great customer experience so that they really try to minimize the effect of what’s happening out there and make you feel like you’re escaping it … that’s why I’m trying not to pass along that cost.”
“None of that would be possible without a lot of dedicated people that continue to work in this industry and work harder than they ever had before,” Scelfo said.
(NEW YORK) — Since the monkeypox vaccine began being distributed in New York City, the rollout has been plagued with issues.
The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has cycled through several scheduling platforms in a matter of weeks, which have experienced crashes as people tried to book appointments.
Additionally, the demand for the vaccine has far outpaced the supply. Whenever the city has released a few thousand vaccine appointment slots, they have been filled up within a matter of hours, sometimes minutes, officials said.
“My general thought about the rollout is that it is a hard situation,” Dr. Dana Mazo, an infectious diseases specialist and clinical associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, told ABC News. “The good news is that there has been a high demand, that the high-risk communities are definitely interested in the vaccine. And so that is good.”
“But when there is a limited supply, we are put in a hard situation and all of us feel the difficulties,” she added.
Shortage of vaccine doses
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in mid-July it had ordered nearly 7 million doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine, which is a two-dose vaccine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent smallpox and monkeypox. However, they will not all be available until mid-2023.
As of Tuesday, the Biden administration has shipped more than 630,000 doses to states, according to HHS data. An additional 786,000 doses have been allocated, but it will take several weeks to distribute the doses.
So far, New York City has received more than 77,800 doses, HHS data shows, but local health officials estimate that as many as 150,000 residents may be at risk for monkeypox exposure.
Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, a professor of health policy and management at City University of New York School of Public Health, said there are only so many doses that can be sent to the city and state when other places are suffering from large outbreaks.
“New York City obviously has had the most cases, but then you’ve had a lot of cases in other places like California, Illinois, Florida, for instance,” he told ABC News. “So how then do you determine how much of those vaccines are supposed to be in New York versus the other locations?”
There have been some attempts to try to stretch out the supply. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said it is prioritizing administering first doses to get as many people as possible at least some level of protection.
“If you have received the first dose, you will be contacted about scheduling the second dose in the coming weeks,” the department states on its website. “You can wait longer than four weeks between doses.”
To increase the number of JYNNEOS doses available, the FDA authorized a new strategy to inject the vaccine intradermally, just below the first layer of skin, rather than subcutaneously, or under all the layers of skin.
This will allow one vial of vaccine to be given out as five separate doses rather than a single dose.
In theory, this should work because the supply would be quintupled and, for example, 6,000 slots being opened would now increase to 30,000 slots, experts said.
However, there are a few roadblocks. Administering vaccines intradermally is a skill that most health care workers are not trained or experienced in, although it can be taught.
It also would require patients to be told that this way of administering is under emergency use authorization rather than full FDA approval.
“The concern is whenever you do things that are off label or splitting doses you have to make sure you get the same efficacy, you get the same protection,” Lee said. “If you do split doses that basically convert the same amount of vaccine to like multiple doses for a greater number of people, we have to ask ourselves what will be the impact in terms of protection?”
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has not stated whether it intends to adopt this strategy.
Glitchy websites and slots filled within minutes
Another problem that has plagued the rollout is the multiple websites that resulted in crashes and glitches as people intend to access them.
In June, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene partnered with MedRite, a chain of urgent care centers, to operate the appointment scheduling website.
The website was scheduled to launch on July 6, but some people were able to access vaccine appointments before the launch time. Officials quickly took down the portal but, when it went back up again, it crashed.
Next, the department turned to Affiliated Physicians, a health care provider, to schedule vaccine appointments.
The website went live on July 12. Less than half an hour later, the health department tweeted the site was down due to a “high level of traffic.”
Eventually, the department switched over to VAX4NYC, the portal that was used for scheduling COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Amish Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, said VAX4NYC should have been used from the start.
“[The health department] should have used systems that anyone had been familiar with,” he told ABC News. “That was a tried and tested system and had been working fine rather than contracts with certain companies, where they’ve had glitches.”
He continued, “A new system that people had to learn on the fly when there was such demand, I think is not ideal when you’re trying to be as efficient as possible with a resource that was in a very limited supply.”
During a City Council oversight hearing last week looking at “failures of New York City’s technological response under critical demand,” Matt Fraser, the city’s chief technology officer, said the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene contracts with MedRite and Affiliated Physicians were drafted under the administration of former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“This vendor had been previously cleared by another administration,” he said during testimony. “Our look at this is that it’s a vendor that’s done similar work in the city for this purpose, and unfortunately, it did not work out this time.”
Questions have also arisen over MedRite’s role due to being cited for fraud in the past. In 2016, then-New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman settled with MedRite after paying for fake positive reviews on various websites.
“I would just say that this is an important question to ask: how was the trust established that they would be able to deliver in an emergency situation when they’ve already been deemed a fraudulent company?” Adalja said. “They should have articulated the rationale. ‘This is why we use it, and we know we’re going to use it, or they should have said that upfront’ They should be transparent about their decision-making process.”
(NEW YORK) — Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., is projected to have lost her primary on Tuesday to Donald Trump-backed Harriet Hageman, ABC News reports, after Cheney built her political profile — and her campaign — around criticizing the former president as an existential threat to American democracy.
Cheney’s defeat was largely expected, given the partisan makeup of her seat and polling that showed her trailing Hageman. Trump won Wyoming in the last presidential election with some 70% of the vote. Still, Cheney’s defeat marks Trump’s biggest win in his revenge tour against intraparty detractors and a warning sign for other anti-Trump Republicans thinking of crossing him.
“Tonight, Harriet Hageman has received the most votes in this primary. She won. I called her to concede the race. This primary election is over,” Cheney said in a speech Tuesday night from a ranch in Jackson, contrasting that call with Trump, who still refuses to concede the 2020 race.
The choice between Cheney and Hageman, both of whom staked out conservative policy platforms, played out largely along national themes and loyalty to Trump.
Cheney focused on criticizing Trump over his role in last year’s deadly Capitol insurrection, casting her reelection bid as a fight to maintain the GOP’s principles.
Hageman, meanwhile, echoed Trump’s unfounded election fraud claims and berated Cheney — whom Hageman had previously advised — as a lawmaker more focused on toppling the de facto GOP leader.
Cheney boasts a famous last name and significantly out-raised Hageman. But over time it became clear that the three-term lawmaker was the underdog as polls showed Wyoming Republicans increasingly favoring her opponent.
In a sign of Cheney’s tenuous footing with members of her own party, her campaign started an outreach effort to voters to explain how they could change their party registration the day of the primary to vote for her — though operatives said there was little hope there were enough Democrats to change Cheney’s fate.
“Two years ago, I won this primary with 73% of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear,” Cheney said in her speech Tuesday. “But it would have required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic — that was a path I could not and would not take.”
“No House seat, no office in this land, is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect,” she said. “And I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty.”
Hageman now is expected to coast in the general election — against projected Democratic opponent Lynnette Grey Bull — in one of the country’s reddest states and be a staunch Trump ally in the House.
“Absolutely the election was rigged. It was rigged to make sure that President Trump could not get reelected,” she said at a campaign event earlier this month indicating her ideological alignment with Trump. “What happened in 2020 is a travesty.”
Hageman on Tuesday touted her win over Cheney, describing it as returning Wyoming’s House seat to the people.
“I will be accountable to the voters and citizens of Wyoming because I am one of you and, just like you, I am sick and tired of having no voice in the U.S. House of Representatives,” she said. “Today we have succeeded at what we set out to do — we have reclaimed Wyoming’s lone congressional seat for Wyoming.”
“Assume that if we put you in power, you will be accountable to us and you will do what is in our best interest. And if you don’t, we will fire you,” she said.
Cheney’s defeat marks a bookend to a meteoric rise and swift fall for an erstwhile GOP star.
She was first elected in 2016 and became the No. 3 Republican in the House in late 2018, a climb that fueled rumors she had an eye on the speakership one day.
However, after last year’s insurrection, she became the highest-ranking House Republican to back impeaching Trump and ultimately became the vice chair of the special committee investigating the Capitol riot.
Her consistent condemnations of Trump infuriated both other House Republicans who accused her of derailing their messaging strategy and some voters in Wyoming who viewed Cheney as an absentee representative more focused on the former president than state issues.
Beyond her tough primary challenge, she also lost her leadership spot in the House and was censured by the Republican National Committee and the Wyoming Republican Party.
Still, Cheney refused to modulate her messaging — given, she said, the danger Trump represented — and indicated that she would continue her focus on combating election conspiracies even after her expected loss.
“Like many candidates across this country, my opponents in Wyoming have said that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. No one who understands our nation’s laws — no one with an honest, honorable, genuine commitment to our Constitution — would say that. It is a cancer that threatens our great Republic,” she said in her closing ad. “If we do not condemn these lies, if we do not hold those responsible to account, we will be excusing this conduct and it will become a feature of all elections. America will never be the same.”
All eyes now will be on what Cheney plans to do after leaving the House, with her hinting that “now the real work begins.”
Speculation has bubbled that Cheney is eyeing a presidential bid in 2024 to challenge Trump, should he run again in two years, a theory that gained more ground in her concession speech in which she noted Abraham Lincoln’s own failed House and Senate bids before he won the presidency.
“Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history,” she said.
Regardless of what form her advocacy takes, Cheney indicated that she will still hold candidates’ feet to the fire over unproven claims of election fraud.
“Today, as we meet here, there are Republican candidates for governor who do deny the outcome of the 2020 election and who may refuse to certify future elections if they oppose the results,” she said in her concession speech. “We have candidates for secretary of state who may refuse to report the actual results of the popular vote in future elections. And we have candidates for Congress, including here in Wyoming, who refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and suggest that states decertify the result.”
“No American should support election deniers for any position of genuine responsibility where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future,” she said.
Cheney’s loss marks the end of a largely successful campaign by Trump to expel his impeachment-backers from the GOP, arguing they were not true Republicans.
Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year, four decided to not seek reelection. Of the six who did, four have now lost their primaries. Only two of the 10 have advanced to the general election.
“Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now.”
ABC News’ Miles Cohen, Lalee Ibssa, Allison Pecorin and Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea fired two cruise missiles on Wednesday as South Korea’s president marked his 100th day in office.
Pyongyang has test-fired its missile system 19 times this year alone, including the latest launch of two cruise missiles Wednesday morning, as intelligence in the U.S. and South Korea has confirmed that North Korea is prepared to conduct its seventh nuclear test.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Wednesday at a press conference that if North Korea expresses a “steady will” to denuclearize, an “audacious” economic booster program could be on offer from the South but said that talks between the two Koreas will not take place unless it is to establish a substantive and long-lasting peace.
Unlike the previous pro-North government, Yoon’s new administration has taken a more aggressive approach to North Korea’s military provocations in the past 100 days.
When North Korea fired eight ballistic missiles from four different regions in the country, South Korea and the U.S. joint forces fired eight surface-to-surface missiles as a countermeasure the following day.
The joint forces are now gearing up for the 10-days-long Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercise which is set to begin next Monday.
Public sentiment in South Korea has broadly indicated that, with no end in sight regarding the easing of tensions between the two nations, it might make sense for South to go nuclear itself.
“Those who assert that South Korea should develop its own nuclear weapons point out the unequal, threatening fact that North Korea has it and South Korea does not,” Kim Hyung-suk, president of the Council on Diplomacy for Korean Unification, told ABC News. “But it’s only an instantaneous idea. There are numerous restraints to actualize a South Korea-made nuclear weapons program.”
According to a public opinion poll report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 71% out of 1,500 people surveyed said that they are in favor of South Korea developing its own nuclear weapon while just 26% percent were against the idea.
Asked by ABC News whether he agrees with such sentiments, Yoon said he remains committed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty which he referred to as an “essential prerequisite for lasting world peace.”
Yoon, however, is currently facing strong disapproval ratings in South Korea due to domestic political conflicts within his own party, a majority opposition in the National Assembly, and several scandals coming from within his own cabinet. Yoon apologized to South Korean’s on Wednesday for these issues and pledged to “listen” to the people with “modesty.”
(NEW YORK) — Serena Williams is a big proponent of setting boundaries when it comes to protecting her mental health.
The tennis legend spoke with multihyphenate star Selena Gomez about her thoughts on mental fitness for Gomez’s mental health platform, Wondermind.
According to Entertainment Tonight, Williams said the practice to her means “really learning to shut down.”
“I did this years ago, before even mental health was a topic among everyone’s mind,” she said. “It was more just like, ‘Alright, I’m shutting myself down today.’ Just subconsciously, it was something I’ve always done.”
“It’s so important to just put yourself first, especially mentally,” she added. “I always have shutdown moments. I have serious boundaries and I don’t let anyone cross those boundaries.”
The Olympic gold medalist admitted she struggles with “do[ing] anything for me.”
“I’m terrible at that,” she said. “I’ve said it time and time again — I’m working on it.”
Still, she added that, “more or less,” she at least prioritizes “what I need to do. And then when I’m turned off, I’m turned off.”
Williams said prioritizing her mental health also benefits the people around her — namely her 4-year-old daughter Olympia.
The sports star said physical health is also influenced by one’s mental health. “It’s about being able to kind of manage your emotions and feelings and everything else still be able to perform,” Williams said.
Wondermind, a startup Gomez co-founded, aims to connect with mental health tools and media to support their “mental fitness,” and provides daily exercises “to support focus” according to its website.
“It takes more than an inspirational quote to really change your mindset. Even if you see a therapist (which is amazing), you still need to work on yourself between sessions,” the website reads. “(You wouldn’t expect physical fitness results seeing a trainer only once in a while, would you?) That’s what Wondermind is here for — to give you easy, doable ways to put your mental fitness first every single day.”
The platform also lists a committee of “mental health advocates,” including licensed psychotherapists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists and social workers, who will “share their expertise on the website,” according to CNN.
Last week, Gomez revealed her mental fitness startup was granted $5 million in a series of funding that was led by Serena Ventures — Williams’ own investment portfolio.
Wondermind’s official Instagram shared a statement from its co-founders — Gomez, Mandy Teefy and Daniella Pierson — that explained how they plan to use the funds. “This funding will be used to accelerate the building of Wondermind’s mental fitness ecosystem across our daily online content, CPG products, and original storytelling for all platforms,” it read.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Boston 5, Pittsburgh 3
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Tampa Bay 3, NY Yankees 1
Baltimore 4, Toronto 2
Detroit 4, Cleveland 3
Minnesota 9, Kansas City 0
Oakland 5, Texas 1
Chi White Sox 4, Houston 3
Seattle 8, LA Angels 2
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Philadelphia 11, Cincinnati 4
Atlanta 5, NY Mets 0
Miami 4, San Diego 3
Chi Cubs 7, Washington 5 (11)
St. Louis 5, Colorado 4
Milwaukee 5, LA Dodgers 4
San Francisco 2, Arizona 1
Garth Brooks is planning to incorporate first responders into his new bar in Nashville.
Since purchasing the building at 411 Broadway, which will become his Friends in Low Places Bar and Honky-Tonk, Garth has been working with city officials on turning the alleyway next to the building into a substation for the Metro Nashville Police Department, the Tennesseanreports.
The legendary singer plans to pay for the station in full as a way to provide police resources, security and traffic control on the busy Broadway street. Garth will need approval from the Metro Council to move the plans forward.
“I commend Garth Brooks for stepping up to help make Lower Broadway safer and more enjoyable for everyone,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper says in a statement. “These additional resources will add new tools to reduce traffic and improve community safety downtown while continuing to prioritize other initiatives for neighborhoods and families throughout Davidson County.”
The honky-tonk gets its name from Garth’s classic 1990 hit. He’s one of many country stars with a bar on Broadway, including Luke Bryan, Dierks Bentley and Miranda Lambert.
Big Sean is returning to his hometown for the fourth iteration of his Detroit on Now, or DON, weekend. The rapper recently shared the schedule for the three-day event, which includes plenty for residents to do.
On Thursday, August 25, there’ll be a screening of God Said Give ’Em Drum Machines — a film about Detroit’s contribution to techno. The event will proceed on August 26 with the presentation of several DON Awards, as well as invite-only activities, including an industry club and time on the basketball court. The final day of the weekend — August 27 — will feature panels discussing everything from fashion to mental health. Residents will also be given an opportunity to convene at a Block Party that will have carnival games, derby races and photo stations, among other things.
“After playing one of my all-time favorite shows at Detroit’s Mo Pop Festival a couple weeks ago, I can’t wait to return to the city and feel its incredible energy,” Sean said of DON Weekend. “I’m constantly inspired by Detroit and the city’s beautiful people. It’s a blessing to be able to give back to the city that made me.”
Sean will throw the event alongside local individuals and organizations, including the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan, City Council President Mary Sheffield and Occupy The Corner Initiative. It’s expected that he will make an important announcement about the Sean Anderson Foundation Content & Production Music Studio, which he plans to build in the Boys & Girls Clubs.
Among Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian‘s many projects is The Damned Things, a band also featuring Fall Out Boy‘s Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley, ex-Every Time I Die frontman Keith Buckley and Alkaline Trio bassist Dan Andriano. Speaking with ABC Audio, Ian shares that he would “love” to get The Damned Things back together for another album.
“That’s one of those things where it’s, you know, we’re all pretty busy,” Ian laughs.
The Damned Things released their debut album, Ironiclast, in 2010 and didn’t get around to putting out a sophomore follow-up until 2019 with High Crimes. Even given nine years, High Crimes still came together out of the blue.
“[Trohman] sent me over these demos; I was, like, ‘Dude! These are amazing!'” Ian recalls. “We never had a meeting or a plan to ‘Let’s start writing a record,’ he was just writing and was writing this great s***, and then that turned into the second album.”
As for album number three, Ian is keeping his hopes up.
“I love those dudes, we’re all friends and are some of my favorite people on this planet,” Ian says. “So any time I would get to be room with them, I’d be very happy about it … I would certainly hope that, at some point, we would get to do it again.”
In the meantime, we can hope that Ian’s 11-year-old son, Revel, keeps pestering him about it.
“My son’s been a big fan of that for years,” Ian says. “He’s constantly [asking], ‘When are you gonna make a Damned Things record?'”
Anthrax is currently touring the U.S. while celebrating the band’s 40th anniversary. Black Label Society is also on the bill.
