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Administrative complaint filed against ‘Rust’ alleging hazards that may have led to death of Halyna Hutchins

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The New Mexico Environment Department filed an administrative complaint against Rust Movie Productions, after the production company had contested citations issued in April alleging hazards on the set that may have led to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the “Rust” movie set last October.

The contested citations also included a fine of $136,793, making for the highest level of citation and maximum fine allowable by law in New Mexico.

Hutchins died and the film’s director, Joel Souza, was hospitalized after a gun held by Alec Baldwin as a prop fired a live round.

NMED issued the citations following a six-month investigation into workplace safety conditions after the shooting. During its investigation, NMED conducted interviews with 14 employees, requested information and documentation from Rust Movie Productions, and communicated with the production company via email to address the work-related fatality and injury.

Rust Movie Productions then contested the citations in May and an informal administrative review was started.

NMED and the production company were unable to reach a settlement of the citations during a 90-day administrative review period. NMED was then required to file a complaint with the Occupational Health and Safety Review Commission.

Rust Movie Productions now has 15 days to submit a response with the commission, before it schedules a hearing.

When it issued the citations, the New Mexico Environment Department’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau called Hutchins’ death “avoidable.”

The administrative complaint alleges that Rust Movie Productions did not create a workplace free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause “death or serious physical harm to employees in that employees were exposed to being struck by discharged rounds or projectiles when firearms were used on the set of the motion picture production.”

Blondie postpones one concert, cancels another because of “recent positive COVID test”

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Blondie was scheduled to play a concert Wednesday night at the Paramount theater in Huntington, New York, but the show has now been postponed “[o]ut of an abundance of caution due to a recent positive COVID test,” according to a message on the band’s social media pages.

The performance has been moved to August 31, and a new show has been added at the same venue on September 1. Meanwhile, an August 12 concert at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut, which was to have marked the launch of a new U.S. leg of Blondie’s Against the Odds Tour, has been canceled.

Tickets that were purchased online for the Foxwoods show will be automatically refunded within 30 days, while tickets bought at the box office can be returned there for an immediate refund.

Blondie’s trek is now slated to kick off on August 14 at Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston. Most of the band’s upcoming shows through an August 27 performance in Chicago will feature veteran British punk group The Damned as the support act.

The Against the Odds Tour gets its name from Blondie’s upcoming box set, Against the Odds: 1974-1982, an expansive collection that delves into the early part of the influential New Wave band’s career. The box set will be released on August 26 and can be preordered now.

Meanwhile, in celebration of the Against the Odds collection, Blondie has launched a contest offering the chance to win one of 30 prints of photos of singer Debbie Harry taken by guitarist Chris Stein, all of which have been signed by Debbie and Chris.

Wildfires ravage France’s famous wine region

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(BORDEAUX, France) — A wildfire is raging at an “unprecedented” rate in the famed wine region south of Bordeaux, France, firefighters said Wednesday.

The prefecture of Gironde in southwest France ordered an estimated 10,000 residents to evacuate.

“Prepare your papers, the animals you can take with you, some belongings,” the Gironde municipality of Belin-Beliet posted on their Facebook before evacuations.

No casualties have been reported as of Wednesday afternoon. Sixteen homes have been destroyed, according to the prefecture of Gironde.

The wildfire began around 1 p.m. on Tuesday in Saint-Magne and Hostens before growing rapidly due to “unfavorable weather conditions,” the prefecture said.

Nearly 14,826 acres were engulfed by the flames around Hostens and Belin-Béliet on Tuesday night.

Over 1,000 firefighters, nine planes and two helicopters have been mobilized to address the fire, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in a statement Wednesday.

The community of Landiras, the epicenter of the current wildfire, lost over 34,000 acres of forest in July.

According to officials, firefighters are facing at least three other fires in the south of France on Wednesday.

French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne tweeted that she will be visiting the region on Thursday.

“The mobilization of the Government and State services, alongside local elected officials, volunteers and residents, is absolute,” Borne tweeted.

In southern France, temperatures are forecast to reach up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit through the end of the week, according to Meteo France, the country’s metorological service.

Currently, 63% of the European Union and U.K. are under either drought warnings or alerts on Wednesday, according to the EU’s European Drought Observatory.

Over 140,000 acres of French land has burned so far this year, nearly six times more than the average for the country from 2006 to 2021, according to the European Forest Fire System.

Suspect arrested in 40-year-old murder of California teen after DNA search: Prosecutors

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(PALO ALTO, Calif.) — Forty years after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death in Northern California, DNA has led to the arrest of her suspected killer, prosecutors announced.

Karen Stitt was last seen on the night of Sept. 2, 1982, heading toward a Sunnyvale bus stop after spending time with her boyfriend, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said.

The next morning, her naked body was found about 100 yards from the bus stop, according to prosecutors.

The Palo Alto teen had been sexually assaulted and stabbed 59 times, prosecutors said.

Stitt’s boyfriend was cleared based on the DNA evidence left behind at the scene, prosecutors said.

Decades went by without a major lead, prosecutors said, until investigators turned to genetic genealogy, which uses an unknown suspect’s DNA to trace his or her family tree.

Genetic genealogy made headlines in 2018 when the novel investigative tool was used to find the Golden State Killer. Genetic genealogy takes an unknown suspect’s DNA left at a crime scene and identifies it using family members who voluntarily submit DNA samples to a DNA database; this allows police to create a much larger family tree than if they only used law enforcement databases like CODIS.

Through genetic genealogy, the search for Stitt’s killer last year narrowed to four brothers from Fresno, California, including 75-year-old Gary Ramirez, prosecutors said.

Investigators then “used traditional investigative techniques to start eliminating the brothers one-by-one,” Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker told ABC News via email Wednesday. “After extensive investigation, we felt confident Gary was the source of the crime scene evidence.”

Last week, the district attorney’s crime lab confirmed Ramirez’s DNA matched the sample at the murder scene, prosecutors said.

On Aug. 2, Ramirez was arrested at his home in Maui, Hawaii, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Baker said he’s surprised Ramirez’s DNA was not in CODIS, adding that Ramirez has no criminal record at all.

Gary Ramirez served in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1970s after which he spent time in Northern California, Southern California, Colorado and Hawaii, according to prosecutors.

Ramirez is due in court in Hawaii on Wednesday for extradition proceedings, prosecutors said. Once in California, he will be arraigned on murder, rape and kidnapping charges, prosecutors said.

Information on an attorney for Ramirez was not immediately available.

Olivia Newton-John’s daughter pays tribute to her mom: “My life giver, my teacher”

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Olivia Newton-John‘s only child, daughter Chloe Lattanzi, is paying tribute to her late mother, calling the beloved actress and singer “my life giver” and “my teacher.”

Chloe, who Olivia shared with ex-husband Matt Lattanzi, posted a heartfelt message to Instagram on Tuesday alongside a clip from the music video of their duet, “Window in the Wall,” which was released last year.

“You are my lighthouse mama. My safe place. My heart space,” Chloe, 36, began. “It has been my honor and continues to be my honor to be your baby and best friend.”

“You are an angel on earth and everyone touched by you has been blessed,” she concluded in the caption. “I love you forever my life giver, my teacher, my mama.”

Last year, Olivia told ABC Audio why she’d chosen to make the song — which is about trying to find common ground — a duet with her daughter, explaining, “When I heard the song, I thought of her … it was a knowing, for me, that that’s how it needed to be.”

Olivia died Monday at the age of 73. The Grease star’s husband, John Easterling, revealed her passing in a statement posted to her social media pages.

Chloe reacted to the loss of her mother at the time by taking to Instagram and sharing a slideshow of photos of the two of them throughout the years.

Three days before her mother’s death, Chloe posted a photo of them together on Instagram and wrote, “I worship this woman. My mother. My best friend.”

Hundreds of Americans still dying of COVID each day despite signs the latest surge may be slowing

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — After several weeks of steady increases in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations, there are encouraging signs that the latest viral resurgence may be abating in the United States.

The rate of new infections appears to be dropping, with the U.S. now reporting 107,000 new cases each day — an average that has fallen by 12% in the last week, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The number of virus-positive Americans currently receiving care in hospitals across the country has plateaued at around 43,000 patients, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Throughout the summer, hospital admission rates had been rising in many areas of the country, particularly in the South.

Hospitalizations, however, remain significantly lower now than during every other COVID-19 surge. There were more than 160,000 patients hospitalized with the virus during the surge last winter.

On average, nearly 400 American deaths to COVID-19 are reported each day, a daily total that has not seen any significant declines since the spring.

Over the last seven days alone, the U.S. has reported just under 2,700 COVID-19 deaths.

The latest viral surge has been largely driven by highly infectious variants, which continue to infect and reinfect Americans. It has been more than eight months since the original omicron variant emerged, and although the original strain is no longer circulating in the U.S., its subvariants continue to spread.

BA.5, a subvariant of omicron, is currently estimated to account for more than 87% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S.

Omicron and its subvariants have been better at chipping away at vaccine efficacy, which has caused health experts to reignite their call for Americans to get vaccinated and boosted.

Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, warned that Americans who are not up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations may be in “trouble” this fall, with immunity waning over time.

Although the burden of hospitalization and death continues to affect primarily individuals who are still unvaccinated, as well as those at highest risk, such as the elderly or the immunocompromised, other people who “don’t fall into those categories” may also find themselves at-risk for severe disease, Fauci said during an interview with KNXAM.

More than 70 million Americans remain unvaccinated. Less than half of eligible Americans have received their first booster and only about one-third of people 50 years and older, who are eligible for a second booster, have received their supplemental shot.

Fauci stressed that in order to “get your arms around” the pandemic, more people must be vaccinated, domestically and globally, “so you don’t give this virus such ample opportunity to freely circulate, and when you do that, the virus has more of an opportunity to mutate, and when you give it an opportunity to mutate, that’s when you get new variants.”

Dylan Scott celebrated “New Truck” going #1 with his own new truck — well, sort of

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Dylan Scott’s got the #1 song on the country charts this week thanks to “New Truck,” his song about having to part ways with a perfectly good vehicle because it reminds him of the love he lost.

To celebrate his newest hit, Dylan celebrated in the most appropriate way possible: by purchasing a new truck of his own. But it wasn’t quite as flashy a purchase as you might think.

“‘New Truck’ is the No. 1 song in the country, so my kids bought me a new one,” the singer wrote on social media, alongside a picture of him squeezed inside a very realistic-looking kids truck.

“No shocker it’s outta gas already though,” the singer added. In the photo, his two kids are behind the truck, pushing their dad along the sidewalk.

Dylan is dad to 4-year-old son Beckett, as well as daughter Finley, who will celebrate her third birthday later this month.

Bangles frontwoman Susannah Hoffs to publish debut novel in 2023

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Bangles singer Susannah Hoffs is going from walking like an Egyptian to writing like an author: She’s publishing her first novel, This Bird Has Flown, next spring.

The book is about a washed-up pop singer who finds new inspiration when she falls in love with an Oxford literature professor she meets on a plane to London. Helen Fielding, who wrote Bridget Jones’ Diary, calls the book a “sexy, page-turning treat.”

Susannah tells Entertainment Weekly, “I decided to make my protagonist a musician and songwriter because it’s a job I know well … I also wanted to give readers a peek behind the curtain of what it’s like to face an audience with your heart thumping so loudly you fear they can hear it, too — and then, somehow, to find your voice.”

The “Eternal Flame” singer adds that she found the novel-writing process “truly exhilarating,” adding, “It was permission to escape into my fictional world with my characters, as though I’d gone through a portal into another world. … It was essentially like playing with dolls in my imagination.”

This Bird Has Flown — presumably titled after the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” — arrives April 4, 2023.

Trump supporters and critics gather outside Mar-a-Lago after FBI search

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.) — Supporters and critics of Donald Trump continued to gather outside Mar-a-Lago two days after it was searched by the FBI.

Trucks toting Trump flags were seen on the road outside of his residence and private club in Palm Beach, Florida, though the former president was in New York on Wednesday for a previously planned deposition in state Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into allegations he inflated the value of his business and properties. (He has said he did nothing wrong and indicated he pleaded the Fifth in the deposition.)

It isn’t clear how many people have been congregating outside Mar-a-Lago on Monday and Tuesday. But a report from ABC affiliate WPBF showed that at one point it was less than a few dozen, along with press and law enforcement.

WPBF reported that the groups grew larger as it got later both Monday and Tuesday.

Residents there gave differing views on the FBI search and not all of them were pro-Trump.

“It’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s wrong,” Stephen Moise, of Jupiter, told WPBF on Monday. “They shouldn’t be doing this to him.”

“I think it’s high time that we’ve seen the government finally take some action against this man,” said Michael Kennedy, of West Palm Beach.

According to WPBF, those gathered at Mar-a-Lago broke down multiple times into “profanity-laced arguments,” but there was no violence.

The Monday morning search by the FBI set off a political firestorm in conservative circles, with Republicans accusing the investigation — without offering evidence — of being politically motivated.

Trump said the raid was “not necessary or appropriate” and amounted to persecution by “Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.

Sources told ABC News that agents were at Mar-a-Lago as part of an investigation into the removal of classified documents from the White House when Trump left the presidency and decamped to his Florida resort.

While it’s not yet known precisely what the FBI was searching for or what was seized, Republicans in Congress have panned the unprecedented search as an egregious overreach and vowed to open investigations into it should they retake the House in November.

ABC News confirmed that, separately, law enforcement agencies across the country have been actively monitoring angry and violent rhetoric online sparked by the raid, with agencies preparing for possible acts of violence they fear could occur at or near pro-Trump protest demonstrations.

ABC News’ Josh Margolin contributed to this report.

Discovery+ teases “explosive” Armie Hammer documentary series, ‘House of Hammer’

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Discovery+ has announced an “explosive” look into the salacious allegations that have derailed the career of The Lone Ranger and The Social Network star Armie Hammer.

Hammer was accused of rape and abuse, and of sending a series of direct messages that dealt with sex and cannibalism. Hammer’s attorneys have claimed all of his relationships have been consensual.

“The accusations of rape and abuse brought against Armie Hammer in the last few years are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Hammer family,” the network teases.

Hammer is the son of businessman Michael Armand Hammer and a great-grandson of the oil tycoon Armand Hammer.

“Featuring exclusive access and shocking revelations, the documentary takes viewers inside the Hammer family’s dark power plays over the course of three revealing hours,” Discovery+ continues.

Jason Sarlanis, the streamer’s head of crime and investigative content, adds, “With House of Hammer, we witness truly disturbing details and sinister secrets that money and power couldn’t hide forever.

“This documentary provides an important platform for the incredibly courageous women who came forward to share their stories, and we hope their courage inspires others to continue meaningful conversations around abuse in our society.”

The trailer for the series features voicemails purportedly from Hammer, who is reportedly in treatment for alcohol and other addictions.

The series debuts September 2.

(Video contains censored profanity)

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