Father’s Day is Sunday and one of pop music’s most high-profile dads, Michael Bublé, will soon become a father for the fourth time. He and his wife, Luisana Lopilato, already parents to sons Noah and Elias and daughter Vida, are expecting a baby girl. Michael, whose Instagram bio lists him as “Devoted Papi,” couldn’t be happier.
“Very proud,” Michael told ABC Audio when asked how he feels about the fact that his wife is expecting again. He then joked, “Hard-earned I would say…a minute-and-a-half of some of the greatest work!”
All kidding aside, though, Michael evidently loves being a girl dad. He told ABC Audio, “I love having boys. I’ve got two boys. But when I heard it was a girl, I was so excited. Like, it’s amazing! There’s a kind of love that the girl gives you, and it’s so nice.”
But before he could be accused of playing favorites, Michael was careful to note, “I love having healthy kids, and I love being a dad. And I love that my wife went for one more. So I take as many as possible.”
You can see all three of Michael’s children in the video for his latest hit, “I’ll Never Not Love You.” His son Noah, who’ll be nine in August, co-wrote the title track of Michael’s latest album, Higher.
Otherwise has premiered a new song called “Full Disclosure.”
In a statement about the straightforward track, guitarist Ryan Patrick says, “We’ve met people who are different from their stage persona.”
“It’s genuine frustration with people who aren’t what they seem,” Patrick shares. “This is who we are.”
Vocalist Adrian Patrick adds, “To sum it up as a former business law major/minor, ‘Full Disclosure’ is a legal term, and it means what you see is what you f***ing get.”
You can listen to “Full Disclosure” now via digital outlets.
“Full Disclosure” is the first song to be released off the next Otherwise album. The upcoming record — title and release date TBA — will follow 2019’s Defy, which includes the single “Lifted.”
Having finished touring her native Canada, Avril Lavigne hits the U.S. Friday, joining her pal Machine Gun Kelly‘s in-progress Mainstream Sellout Tour. While Avril plans to play about half of her new album, Love Sux, she says she’ll revisit her entire back catalog — and the memories associated with it.
“It’s important for me to play songs from all seven of my records. So I’ll play all the hits from over the years, some from each album,” she tells ABC Audio. “And I think that’s fun because it’s like going on a journey with me [and] with my music over the last 20 years.”
Avril says she loves the fact that performing her past hits takes her fans back to a certain place and time in their lives.
“It’s kind of nostalgic, y’know? You tie memories to certain songs and I hear that from people all the time,” she shares. “They’re like, ‘Oh, I listen to ‘Sk8er Boi,’ it takes me back to high school!'”
Avril laughs, “I’m like, ‘Yeah, it takes me back to making my first album and coming out to LA for the first time and dropping out of high school!”
The singer, who’s engaged to boyfriend Mod Sun, notes, “I have my memories attached to the songs and then other people have theirs: falling in love, summer, whatever it is. And so that’s so fun. and I love that! And it’s kind of like this, emotional journey…That’s what I love about music. It’s so powerful.”
Avril’s tour with MGK runs through August 13. In September, she starts a run of festival appearances, including Brazil’s Rock in Rio, Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival, and the emo-tastic When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas. Then she’s off to Asia and Europe for more shows.
Xernona Clayton‘s entrance onto the blue carpet of the 2022 Trumpet Awards in April was quiet but grand, similar to her humble recollection of the history-rich 91 years of her life. Though welcoming of questions about her mission as the creator of the Black awards show, Clayton was eager to delve into her career and life story beyond the Trumpets. Ahead of the 30th annual Trumpet Awards airing on Juneteenth, ABC Audio spoke with Clayton about her humanitarianism.
“I think I’ve done some things that were momentous but people always pick out the Trumpets,” Clayton said jokingly via Zoom call from her home in Atlanta. “Everything else has kind of been forgotten. But that’s OK.”
Born Xernona Brewster on August 30, 1930, Clayton was raised in the segregated small town of Muskogee, Oklahoma, by her part-Indian mother and Black father. She grew up to become an integral leader of the civil rights movement.
Clayton investigated employment discrimination with the National Urban League; became the first Black person in the South to host a prime-time television talk show; and was good friends with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King.
“I’ve fulfilled commitments through the work of Dr. King, and I became an integral part of the organization,” she said of her time working at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta.
Clayton and her late first husband, Ed Clayton, the Jet Magazine editor who stopped the presses to put Emmett Till‘s bludgeoned photo on the cover, relocated to Atlanta at the request of the Kings in 1965. She says they “trusted me implicitly” to do the civil and social work.
In 1968, Clayton drove King to the Atlanta airport ahead of his flight to Memphis, two days before his assassination. She tells people of their close relationship, “Once I met him and went to work for him, I stayed with him to the end, literally.”
She once got a key member of the Ku Klux Klan to renounce the white supremacist organization. She was also the driving force behind the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame. For more than 50 years, her profound accomplishments have contributed to the advancement of America’s promise of liberty and justice for all.
While she couldn’t quite articulate what legacy she hopes to leave behind, she did offer a piece of advice: “Don’t occupy space on Earth as your contribution, do something.”
Bonnaroo has finally returned, and Judah & the Lion is ready to jam again.
The “Take It All Back” outfit is set to perform at the Tennessee festival — which is back this year after being canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic and weather, respectively — this Saturday. The set will essentially be a hometown show for the Nashville-based band, and they plan to celebrate accordingly.
“We’re going all out on the production,” frontman Judah Akers tells ABC Audio.
This year marks Judah & the Lion’s second performance at Bonnaroo, following their debut in 2016. However, they have a long history of attending the festival as fans.
“When we were in college, we would go and camp for the four days,” Akers shares. “We just love that festival a lot.”
The Bonnaroo set will also give Judah a chance to play songs off their new album, Revival, which dropped last Friday. Perhaps they’ll bring out the single “Scream!”, which, ironically, doesn’t have any screaming on it. Instead, Akers merely whispers the word “scream” on the song.
“We talked about it, ’cause I scream a lot on certain songs,” Akers explains. “When we were talking about, [we thought] it feels like the fans should be the ones to do it.”
Playing “Scream!” live, Akers thinks, will be an opportune time to let the crowd let their emotions fly.
“We wanted to subtly play at that whisper that we did on the track,” Akers says. “But we’re hoping that the fans gravitate [to it] live and will take over that spot.”
Even if you’re not going to Bonnaroo this year, you can still “Scream!” along to Judah & the Lion’s set, which will air via Hulu’s livestream of the festival.
(WASHINGTON) — New details and never-before-seen photographs have emerged about the “heated” phone call between President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.
The information came out in the House select committee’s third public hearing this month in its investigation of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The panel on Thursday focused on the intense pressure placed on Pence by Trump and others to single-handedly overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory in the 2020 presidential race.
Pence refused Trump’s last-ditch demands, which witnesses said sparked a mocking response from Trump.
The committee shared new photographs of Trump on that very phone call, which it obtained from the National Archives. Another exhibit showed a handwritten note on Trump’s schedule that the call was slated to take place at 11:20 a.m., just hours before a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as Pence was presiding over Congress certifying Biden’s win.
“The conversation got pretty heated,” Ivanka Trump, the ex-president’s daughter who was in the room, told the committee in a videotaped deposition.
She recalled the phone call representing a “different tone” from what she’d previously heard her father use with Pence.
Other aides who were also inside the Oval Office echoed Ivanka Trump’s alarm.
Eric Herschmann, then was serving as the White House counsel, told lawmakers that the conversation started off with a “calmer tone” but “then it became heated.” Herschmann said he didn’t think many people were paying attention to the call until it became “louder.”
Nicholas Luna, Trump’s former assistant, told the committee he was delivering a note to the Oval Office when he overheard some of Trump’s side of the conversation.
“I remember hearing the word ‘wimp,'” Luna said in a taped deposition. “Either he called him a wimp, I don’t remember if he said, ‘You are a wimp, you’ll be a wimp.’ Wimp is the word I remember.”
Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump’s former chief of staff, said in her deposition she remembered being told by Ivanka Trump “her dad had just had an upsetting conversation with the vice president.”
Radford said she was told the former president had called Pence “the p-word.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser at the time, said in a taped deposition that he remembers Trump telling Pence he wasn’t “tough enough.”
Greg Jacob, who served as Pence’s legal counsel between December 2020 and January 2021, testified live on Thursday about what he experienced on the other side of the call.
Jacob said he and several other people were with Pence finalizing his statement on why he couldn’t unilaterally reject state electors when Pence stepped out of the room to receive the call from Trump.
“No staff went with him,” Jacob told the committee.
After the call, Jacob testified, Pence appeared to be “steely, determined, grim.”
The House select committee on Thursday commended the former vice president for his “courage” in rejecting Trump’s demands.
“Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice president has ever done,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in his opening remarks.
“The former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner, or send the votes back to the states to be counted again,” Thompson continued. “Mike Pence said no. He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong.”
Rep. Pete Aguilar, a Democrat who led the hearing Thursday, said it was a “pressure campaign that built to a fever pitch with a heated phone call on Jan. 6.”
Jan. 6 Committee member Rep. Aguilar says Americans will hear “how Vice Pres. Pence withstood an onslaught of pressure from Pres. Trump, both publicly and privately.”
The committee also revealed new photographs of Pence and his family hiding in an underground location of the Capitol complex as Trump supporters stormed the building.
In one photo, Pence is seen looking at a tweet Trump had just sent asking rioters to leave the area.
Pence remained in the underground location for four hours as law enforcement officials eventually pushed back the mob.
Jacob, Pence’s former adviser, told the committee that Pence decided to stay in the area so as to “not to take any chance that the world would see the vice president of the United States fleeing the United States Capitol.”
Jacob also testified that Trump didn’t check in on Pence at all during that time, which left Pence frustrated.
ABC News on Wednesday published exclusively-obtained White House photos of the Pence family after he was evacuated from the Senate floor, where the joint session of Congress was taking place.
Denise Truscello/Getty Images for Caesars Entertainment
Stingwill take part in the 2022 edition of Climate Action Live, an international event that’s being organized by the Peace One Day organization to promote positive action to help the environment.
The event will bring together musicians, actors, environmental activists, business leaders and others for performances, panel discussions and interviews to encourage individuals and organizations to work toward a more sustainable future for the planet while focusing on how peace and climate are interconnected.
The event will begin at 8 a.m. ET on June 21 and will be viewable live on Peace One Day’s Twitter page. Sting will give a performance that will air at 4:10 p.m. ET.
Filmmaker Jeremy Gilley, who founded Peace One Day, says, “The timing of Climate Action Live 21 June is more important this year than ever. Worldwide we’ve seen the devastating effect that conflict over resources manifests so please join the global community and tune into Climate Action Live…and listen to individuals of all ages from across the world as they inform, inspire and engage you towards positive climate action. ‘No Peace — No Climate Action.'”
Gilley founded Peace One Day in 1999 to establish an annual Peace Day that takes place on the same date each year, September 21.
(WASHINGTON) — Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a rare public appearance during the frenzied crush of Supreme Court opinion season, delivered public praise of her colleague Justice Clarence Thomas and gave a pep talk to progressives Thursday as the embattled institution prepares to issue major rulings driven by the court’s conservative majority.
“If it doesn’t kill me, it makes me stronger. That is what adversity does to you,” an upbeat Sotomayor, one of the court’s three liberal justices, told an audience at the American Constitution Society conference in Washington.
In the coming days, the court will issue opinions on abortion, gun rights, immigration, school prayer and climate policy. The justice did not directly address any of the pending cases, or an unprecedented leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito last month that showed the conservative majority ready to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Sotomayor did, however, discuss how infamous and unjust court decisions can later be corrected, citing the Dred Scott case of 1857, which held that enslaved or free black Americans could not be citizens. She noted that it took eight years and a Civil War to rectify, but that ultimately it was overturned.
“We have to have continuing faith in the court system, in our system of government, in our ability — I hope not through war — but through constitutional amendment, to change in legislation, towards lobbying, towards continuing the battle each day to regain the public’s confidence that we as a court, as an institution have not lost our way,” Sotomayor said.
“We as a society, have taken steps some may disagree with. But if we disagree, we will continue to battle to do justice,” she said.
Alito, in his draft opinion in the abortion case, cited the Scott case to justify overturning Roe, arguing that the 1973 landmark opinion was similarly, in his view, wrongly decided from the start.
Sotomayor’s appearance was the first by a member of the court’s liberal wing since the leaked opinion breached a cherished code of trust, upended court operations and stirred new security threats to the justices, including an alleged assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Her remarks also followed public comments by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas last month, each of whom suggested relations among justices and with their clerks have significantly deteriorated amid recent events.
“When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally,” Thomas said at a conference in May. “You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like kind of an infidelity that you can explain it, but you can’t undo it.”
Sotomayor heaped praise on Justice Thomas — who has been sharply criticized by Democrats and progressive legal scholars for his positions in controversial cases and for the alleged involvement of his wife, Ginni Thomas, in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Thomas was one of the only justices to dissent from the court’s decision to decline to take up several election-related cases.
“I suspect I have probably disagreed with him more than with any other justice, that we have not joined each other’s opinions more than anybody else,” Sotomayor said, and yet “he is a man who cares deeply about the court as an institution, about the people who work there…”
Thomas has a “very different philosophy of life,” Sotomayor continued, “but I think we share a common understanding about people and kindness towards them. That’s why I can be friends with him and still continue our daily battle over our difference of opinions in cases.”
While many Democrats and progressive activists have been downtrodden about the direction of the Supreme Court with a 6-3 conservative majority — some are demanding dramatic changes to the size and scope of the court — Sotomayor urged optimism and civility in the face of disappointment.
“You can lie down and let the truck run you over. Or, you can…get up and build the barricades,” she told the crowd. “I don’t mean this literally, I mean it figuratively….Look, there are days I get discouraged. There are moments where I am deeply, deeply disappointed. And yes, there have been moments where I’ve stopped and said, ‘Is this worth it anymore?’ And every time I do that, I lick my wounds for a while. Sometimes I cry. And then I say, OK — let’s fight.”
(NEW YORK) — For more than a century, the Boy Scouts of America was a powerful institution aimed at empowering young people to make “ethical and moral choices.” But repeated lawsuits over sex abuse claims scouts say they suffered in scouting and the court-ordered release of decades of internal Boy Scouts of America records cataloguing abuse allegations led to institutional disgrace and bankruptcy.
The century-long-cover-up by The Boy Scouts of America to conceal pedophiles that were in their ranks and how their secret “perversion files” would eventually lead to the financial downfall and bankruptcy of the organization.
ABC News Studios partners with Imagine Documentaries and Vermilion Films to present “Leave No Trace: A Hidden History of The Boy Scouts.” The film examines financial records, court documents and firsthand survivor accounts to dissect a coverup of sexual abuse within the Boy Scouts of America.
After premiering at the Tribeca Festival on June 9, “Leave No Trace” is set to stream on Hulu and in select theaters on Thursday, June 16.
Stream the full story June 16 on Hulu
The Boy Scouts of America responded to ABC News about the film’s release and said they are “deeply sorry for the pain endured by survivors of abuse,” but the organization challenges aspects of the film.
“While there are aspects of the film “Leave No Trace” that mischaracterize the BSA’s policies and actions, rather than challenge these inaccuracies, our focus is on supporting survivors,” the organization told ABC News. It continued, “The BSA welcomes any opportunity for survivors to share their stories as part of the healing process, and we applaud the bravery and resilience of all survivors of past abuse in Scouting.”
The Boy Scouts of America still remains one of the largest youth organizations in the United States and reported approximately 2.1 million youth members and nearly 800,000 adult volunteers in 2019. At its height, the organization served over 5 million youths in 1979.
In 2012, the Boy Scouts of America was forced by a court order in a sexual abuse lawsuit brought by a former scout in Oregon to release over 20,000 pages of documentation of alleged child sexual abuse cases within the organization from 1965 to 1985.
The film investigates how the organization allegedly helped cover up the abuse cases and failed to report the allegations externally to police or other local officials.
In February 2020, the Boy Scouts of America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to offer “equitable compensation” to victims and their families, according to a press release.
Three months later, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware set a November 2020 deadline for all survivors of sexual abuse to file claims, according to a press release.
More than 82,000 sexual abuse claims were reportedly filed.
Earlier this year, survivors of sex abuse in scouting voted to accept a proposed 2.7 billion dollar settlement from the Boy Scouts of America as part of its reorganization plan. If approved by the bankruptcy court, it would be the largest sex-abuse payout in American history.
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Florida was the first state to advise against vaccinating healthy kids for COVID-19.
Florida was the only state in the U.S. that didn’t preorder any COVID-19 vaccines for young children, federal officials said Thursday.
The Florida Department of Health did not want to be involved in a “convoluted vaccine distribution process,” a representative from the department told ABC News in a statement on Wednesday.
“The Florida Department of Health (Department) has made it clear to the federal government that states do not need to be involved in the convoluted vaccine distribution process, especially when the federal government has a track record of developing inconsistent and unsustainable COVID-19 policies,” the representative said.
In March, the state’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, announced Florida would become the first state to officially advise against vaccinating healthy children for COVID-19.
“Already the rates were low. So, we’re kind of scraping at the bottom of the barrel particularly with healthy kids, in terms of actually being able to quantify with any accuracy and any confidence, the infinite potential of benefit,” Ladapo said at the time.
The representative for the state health department reiterated the health department still does not recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for all children.
“It is also no surprise we chose not to participate in distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine when the Department does not recommend it for all children,” the representative wrote.
Doctors will be able to order vaccines as they are needed, the department said. However, the representative noted that there are currently no orders in the Department’s ordering system for the COVID-19 vaccine for these young kids.
On Thursday, the White House quickly pushed back on Florida’s decision not to order any shots for young children.
“By being the only state — this is Florida — not preordering, which means that pediatricians, for example, in Florida will not have immediate ready access to vaccines, some pharmacies and community health centers in the state get access through federal distribution channels, but those options are limited for parents. We encouraged Florida on several occasions to order vaccines … and we will continue to do so,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing on Thursday.
Jean-Pierre said the White House has been working with states for “some time” to ensure that if the vaccines are authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the doses will be “shipped to places like pediatricians and children’s hospitals, places where parents would get health care for their youngest or as quickly as possible.”
With Florida not preordering vaccines, it will make it more difficult for parents to get a hold of vaccines for their young children, Jean-Pierre added.
Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, concurred, adding that access to the shots will be critical to uptake.
“Vaccines access and confidence are tightly linked. If you make it harder for parents to vaccinate their kids, it will reduce the likelihood they will, especially if on the fence. By not making preorders available to Florida vaccination clinics, you are doing a disservice to so many families who have waited over two years to vaccinate their youngest kids,” Brownstein said.
Issues of equity may also be exacerbated, as some lower-income families may have a harder gaining access to the shots, Brownstein said.
“This rollout was already going to be the most challenging yet, especially with pharmacies playing a more limited role. By removing the state from the ordering equation, you are shifting a cumbersome process to pediatric frontline health care that is already stretched way too thin,” Brownstein added. “More challenging access will unfortunately only serve to exacerbate health disparities. Minority and low-income communities that already have a more challenging time accessing vaccines will have less options available.”
A committee of advisors to the FDA voted on Wednesday to recommend the Moderna vaccine for children under 6, which is a two-dose vaccine, and the Pfizer vaccine for kids under 5, which is a three-dose vaccine.
If FDA leadership chooses to officially authorize the vaccines, the administration can start shipping out vaccines to states. On Friday and Saturday, the CDC’s advisers will meet to review the data on both vaccines for children.
Thus far, states have preordered 3.8 million doses of vaccines for the youngest children, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Sasha Pezenik contributed to this report.
