Maren Morris‘ pre-show routine is packed with fun activities!
The superstar took to TikTok to give fans an inside look at what life is like on the road, particularly what her day looks like before the takes the stage. Maren begins the day with a peaceful yoga session with her crew “to get our bodies moving,” she says in a voice-over.
While the crew sets up the stage, she heads into soundcheck while 2-year-old son Hayes plays in a kiddie pool beside the stage.
But perhaps the most unique activity on the road is that of pickleball, which Maren confesses they’re all “obsessed” with. The video includes footage of her playing with the paddle and ball while her friend dons a terrycloth outfit and whistle.
Saturday nights are when the real party starts: the team indulges in vodka and gin martinis, putting together special blends titled “the classic bi***” for gin and “the basic bi***” for vodka, along with some glasses of rosé.
Before she hits the stage, Maren and the band do a spirited chant, ending the night by signing autographs for fans out by the bus.
“Pre-show life is almost as fun as the show out here…,” Maren says in the caption.
“The Bones” singer continues on her Humble Quest Tour through the end of October, with a closing date at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on December 2.
Pearl Jam has announced the Tour Edition of the band’s latest album, Gigaton.
The expanded set includes a bonus disc featuring live versions of nearly every song off the original album, recorded during PJ’s festival shows in 2021.
Gigaton (Tour Edition) will be released July 8 and is available to preorder now.
The original Gigaton was released in March 2020 and marked the first Pearl Jam album in seven years. The band’s planned headlining tour, which was postponed from 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, finally launched this year, though the U.S. leg was cut short after both drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Jeff Ament tested positive for COVID-19.
Pearl Jam is currently on tour in Europe and will return to North America for a round of U.S. and Canadian dates in September.
The EP will be made available for the first-time ever as a standalone CD, and also will be released on cassette and as a vinyl picture disc. Chronic Town‘s co-producer, Mitch Easter, has written new liner notes for the reissue.
Released on August 24, 1982, Chronic Town arrived about a year after R.E.M.’s debut single, “Radio Free Europe,” and preceded the band’s classic 1983 debut studio album, Murmur.
“One might fancifully say that Chronic Town was the sound of an expedition, ready for anything, setting forth,” says Easter about the EP. “If R.E.M. ‘Radio Free Europe’ single was a signpost, the Chronic Town EP was the atlas.”
The EP included the early gems “Wolves, Lower,” “Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)” and “1,000,000,” and features singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry coming together to create the jangly “College Rock” sound that has influenced so many other artists over the years.
You can preorder the Chronic Town reissue now. Here’s the full track list:
“Wolves, Lower”
“Gardening at Night”
“Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)”
“1,000,000”
“Stumble”
The official teaser trailer for Hocus Pocus 2 is out now.
Fans get a glimpse of Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy and Bette Midler back in action as the Sanderson sisters in the preview for the upcoming live-action comedy.
Hocus Pocus 2 follows three girls who, “accidentally bring the Sanderson Sisters back to modern-day Salem and must figure out how to stop the child-hungry witches from wreaking a new kind of havoc on the world.”
The famous trio of witches appears near the end of the trailer as Midler’s famous character, Winifred Sanderson, yells, “Lock up your children! Yes, Salem, we’re back!”
Fans got a first look at Parker, Najimy and Midler reprising their roles for the upcoming film last November.
After teasing that her new song, “Hot S***,” is coming on Friday, Cardi B revealed she’s enlisted two collaborators on the track.
The song will feature Lil Durk and Kanye West, Cardi shared in a social media post Monday night.
She also unveiled what appeared to be the single’s cover art, featuring her lounging in the back of a car wearing chrome shades with matching metallic bra and stiletto heels.
The announcement comes ahead of Cardi’s long-awaited sophomore album, the follow up to 2018’s Invasion of Privacy. She’s since released a string of collaborations including 2020’s Megan Thee Stallion-assisted “WAP,” a verse on Lizzo‘s “Rumors,” and the remix to Summer Walker and SZA‘s “No Love.”
John Wreford/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(CAIRO, Egypt) — Ekhlas Helmy, 88, has spent decades waking up every morning to the scenery of the Nile flowing seamlessly beneath her houseboat, a stationary house moored to the banks of the famous river in Cairo.
But the aging woman, who inherited her house ages ago, now faces eviction after the Egyptian government gave her what she and other houseboat owners described as a short-notice order to evacuate, citing failure to pay license fees and several other reasons.
The Nile houseboats are entrenched in Cairo’s history. Some date back to the early 20th century and hold significant historic value.
“How can we simply wipe out our history?” Helmy told ABC News, her voice cracking. “I was born in the Nile and I lived my entire life here.”
Government officials say the houseboats are dilapidated and cause pollution, reasons which the owners believe are a mere pretext to take them down and make room for other commercial buildings, such as restaurants and cafes, which already straddle big chunks of the river.
More than two dozen houseboats stationed on the banks of the Nile in the working-class neighborhood of Imbaba, a Greater Cairo district, face the imminent threat of being demolished. Five of the 29 houseboats, which are situated opposite the upscale island of Zamalek, were towed away on Monday.
The rest are expected to face the same fate on July 5, as the government presses ahead with a “restructuring plan,” the details of which it has not specified.
Ayman Nour, the head of the General Administration for Nile Protection in Greater Cairo — a government body responsible for removing any encroachments on the river — told MBC, a Saudi-owned television channel, that a government decision was made in 2020 to ban the registration of any residential houseboats.
If owners would like to stay put, they will have to turn their licenses into commercial ones, according to Nour, and thus pay far higher fees.
Owners said obstacles had been thrown their way in recent years, including a decision to increase the fees they pay 20-fold and the “inexplicable” refusal of authorities to accept money from them. While the houseboats are private properties, owners have to pay rental fees for the land and the docks to which they are tied up.
“When I married, I moved with my husband to an apartment in Zamalek. But when he died, I sold it and returned to my houseboat 30 years ago,” Helmy said. “I couldn’t live on my own in Zamalek. In the houseboat, there are people around you. There is warmth.”
Historic value
The wooden structures are featured in many classic black-and-white movies. In one famous novel, “Adrift on the Nile,” written by Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz in 1966, a group of people gather every night in a houseboat to smoke hash — symbolizing the deterioration of society during the era of President Gamal Abdel-Nasser. It was adapted into a 1971 film Chitchat on the Nile.
A houseboat owned by late Egyptian actress and dancer Hekmat Fahmy housed two German Nazi spies in the early 1940s and another hosted government meetings during the reign of King Farouk I, from 1936 to 1952.
The houseboats used to number in the hundreds, but had sharply dwindled to a few dozens when they were moved from the Zamalek island to Imbaba in the mid-1960s. It was not until then that the residential houseboats were legalized.
“They never let us know that a decision had already been made [to evacuate us] two years ago,” award-winning novelist Ahdaf Soueif, who is one of the owners, told ABC News. “They didn’t give us a proper chance to argue and get any result. Even if we hadn’t got one, we would have at least been given a decent amount of notice to change our lives.”
“The presence of those houseboats is something beautiful for people passing by. We can have an open day where people can be let into the decks to experience life on a houseboat for one day,” she added, vowing to fight on.
Activists accuse the government of disregarding any historic and architectural heritage when it embarks on urban development. The government says it’s keen on preserving the material fabric of Egypt’s past and that such projects are necessary to accommodate the ever-growing population.
“Where would I go at this age?” Helmy, the 88-year-old woman, said. “This houseboat is my entire life. I’m an old woman who walks on crutches, where would I go?”
(NEW YORK) — A new study finds that as the coronavirus continues to evolve, each new omicron subvariant is increasingly likely to lead to reinfection or breakthrough infection. However, researchers say current vaccines are still doing a good job of protecting people against severe illness.
Meanwhile, vaccine makers are working on new and improved boosters that will hopefully be a better match against omicron and its subvariants. Food and Drug Administration advisers are slated to meet on June 28 to discuss the new booster shots.
The new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, echoes prior studies, and the finding is consistent with what we’re seeing in the real world. Working in a laboratory, researchers measured neutralizing antibody response against the original Wuhan variant, compared to the new omicron variant and many of its sub variants.
Antibody levels are one measure of immune response, and often used as a rough indication of a variant’s ability cause reinfection or breakthrough infection. Other parts of your immune system, like T-cells, are harder to measure but are a much better indicator of how well protected you are against severe disease.
Researchers found neutralizing antibody levels were six-fold lower against the original omicron variant, fourteen-fold lower against BA.2.12.1, and twenty-fold lower against BA.4/BA.5.
The BA.2.12.1 sub variant is currently dominant in the U.S., but the BA.4/BA.5 sub variants have been growing proportionally and now account for more than a third of estimated cases.
“It’s essentially an arms race,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, author on the recent study and director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “As the population becomes more immune, the virus becomes more and more immune evasive.”
The good news, said Barouch, is current vaccines are still working to dramatically reduce the risk of severe disease. “That’s the most important goal of vaccination.”
(SAN ANTONIO) — Dozens of people were found dead inside a tractor-trailer in San Antonio on Monday evening in a suspected case of human smuggling, authorities said.
Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, citing information provided by U.S. authorities, said the death toll was at least 50, including 22 Mexican citizens, seven Guatemalan citizens and two Honduran citizens. The other victims have yet to be identified and Mexico is working with the U.S. to investigate, according to Ebrard.
“We are in mourning,” Ebrard said in a statement Tuesday via Twitter. “Huge tragedy.”
The incident unfolded in the south-central Texas city on Monday evening at around 5:50 p.m. local time, when a nearby worker heard a cry for help and found the tractor-trailer with the doors partially opened and at least 46 deceased people inside, according to San Antonio Police Chief Bill McManus and San Antonio Fire Department Chief Charles Hood.
An additional 16 people — 12 adults and four children — were transported to area hospitals after what officials called a “mass casualty event.”
Chris Magnus, commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), told reporters he was “horrified” by the incident.
“Horrified at this tragic loss of life near San Antonio,” Magnus said Monday night. “This speaks to the desperation of migrants who would put their lives in the hands of callous human smugglers who show no regard for human life.”
The trailer was refrigerated but did not have a visibly working air-conditioning unit and there were no signs of water inside, according to Hood.
The victims taken to hospitals were hot to the touch and all suffering from heat stroke and heat exhaustion, Hood said. There were no child fatalities that authorities know of, he added.
Three people are in custody in connection with the incident, according to McManus, who added that the case is now a federal investigation.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told ABC News that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) responded to a call on Monday regarding an alleged human smuggling event and, upon arriving at the scene, confirmed the death of more than 40 people.
“HSI continues its enforcement efforts to ensure the safety and well-being of our communities. We will continue to address the serious public safety threat posed by human smuggling organizations and their reckless disregard for the health and safety of those smuggled,” the ICE spokesperson said in a statement. “To report suspicious activity, we encourage people to call the HSI Tip Line at 1-866-DHS-2ICE. All calls are kept confidential.”
“Details will be released as they are available, the criminal investigation remains ongoing,” the ICE spokesperson added. “HSI continues its enforcement efforts to ensure the safety and well-being of our communities.”
The San Antonio Fire Department confirmed to ABC News that HSI and CBP are taking over the investigation from local authorities.
CBP is the umbrella agency of the U.S. Border Patrol, which responded to assist at the scene and is supporting ICE in the federal investigation, according to Magnus, the CBP commissioner.
“We will be working with our federal, state and local partners to assist in every way possible with this investigation,” Magnus told reporters Monday night.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas took to Twitter to say that he was “heartbroken by the tragic loss of life today and am praying for those still fighting for their lives.”
“Far too many lives have been lost as individuals — including families, women, and children — take this dangerous journey,” he tweeted Monday night. “Human smugglers are callous individuals who have no regard for the vulnerable people they exploit and endanger in order to make a profit. We will work alongside our partners to hold those responsible for this tragedy accountable and continue to take action to disrupt smuggling networks.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released more details on the Biden administration’s efforts to combat human smuggling and unauthorized migration in conjunction with the Summit of the Americas held in Los Angeles.
The series of operations launched across the Western Hemisphere is part of the largest human smuggling crackdown ever seen in the region, with more than 1,300 deployed personnel and nearly 2,000 smugglers arrested in just two months.
Agencies from across the administration, including the intelligence community and the U.S. Treasury Department, have engaged to disrupt smuggling operations in real-time and strip down the financial backing of the transnational criminal organizations that coordinate these crimes.
“The Biden administration is focused on putting these organizations out of business,” DHS said in a recent statement prior to Monday’s incident. “But human smuggling is, by definition, a transnational problem and we are committed to working with our regional partners in the Americas to commit our collective expertise and resources to put an end to human smuggling.”
ABC News’ Luke Barr, Marilyn Heck, Anne Laurent and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
When it comes to relationships, Lori Harvey looks to her parents, Steve Harvey and Marjorie Elaine Harvey, for inspiration.
“They’re definitely my couple goals,” the 25-year-old told Us Weekly. “I literally was just talking to my mom on the phone earlier and she was telling me what she got my dad for their anniversary tomorrow and I’m like, ‘Wow, you guys are literally goals.’ This is what I want one day.”
“They have the best love,” she says of Steve, 65, and Marjorie, 57, who have been married for 15 years.
“They’re so supportive of me and, you know, just always here for me, whatever I need. So they’re great. I love them,” the SKN by LH founder gushed.
Lori even joked that her parents should write a “playbook manual” on relationships before sharing what she thinks makes their bond so strong.
“Their biggest thing I think is making communication key. Being on the same page. Like maintaining a friendship,” she explained. “Still liking each other after so many years because of course the love is always going to be there, but being able to be like, ‘I really like this person, I like hanging out with them, I have a good time with them. I can laugh and just kick it and hang out.’ That’s really important.”
Lori’s comments follow her split from Michael B. Jordan, who she dated for over a year. When news broke earlier this month, a source close to Harvey toldPeople that while she and Jordan “were making plans for their future,” Harvey “realized that they weren’t on the same page.”
Ukrainian State Emergency Service / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(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:
Jun 28, 8:17 am
Russian forces in Ukraine ‘are increasingly hollowed out,’ UK says
Ukrainian forces are still consolidating their positions on higher ground in the eastern city of Lyschansak after falling back from nearby Sieverodonetsk, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Tuesday in an intelligence update.
“Ukrainian forces continue to disrupt Russian command and control with successful strikes deep behind Russian lines,” the ministry added.
According to the ministry, Russian forces over the weekend “launched unusually intense waves of strikes across Ukraine using long-range missiles.”
“These weapons highly likely included the Soviet-era AS-4 KITCHEN and more modern AS-23a KODIAK missiles, fired from both Belarusian and Russian airspace,” the ministry said. “These weapons were designed to take on targets of strategic importance, but Russia continues to expend them in large numbers for tactical advantage. Similarly, it fielded the core elements of six different armies yet achieved only tactical success at Sieverodonetsk.”
“The Russian armed forces are increasingly hollowed out,” the ministry added. “They currently accept a level of degraded combat effectiveness, which is probably unsustainable in the long term.
Jun 28, 6:22 am
Death toll from mall strike rises to 18
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian shopping mall continued to rise Tuesday as rescuers sifted through the charred rubble.
Monday’s attack in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk killed at least 18 people and wounded 59 others, including 25 who remain hospitalized Tuesday, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. A day of mourning for the victims was declared Tuesday in the wider Poltava Oblast.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday in his nightly address that more than 1,000 shoppers and workers were inside the mall during the afternoon attack and that it will take time to “establish the number of victims.” He condemned the incident as “one of the most daring terrorist attacks in European history.”
Jun 28, 5:49 am
Ukraine joining NATO could lead to WWIII, Russia warns
Russia warned Tuesday that Ukraine joining NATO could lead to World War III should Kyiv then attempt to encroach on the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
“Crimea is a part of Russia for us. And that means forever,” Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview Tuesday with Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty. “Any attempt to encroach on Crimea is a declaration of war against our country. If a NATO member country does so, this would mean a conflict with the North Atlantic Alliance. The World War III. A complete catastrophe.”
“Ukraine within NATO is far more dangerous for our country [than Sweden and Finland],” he added. “And this is linked to what [Russian] President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken about: the presence of unresolved territorial disputes, as well as the difference in understanding of the regions’ status.”
Although Moscow is not opposed to Sweden and Finland joining the military alliance, Russia will still have to reinforce its borders in this case, according to Medvedev.
“Accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO will not pose any new threats to us,” he told Argumenty i Fakty. “If they feel better and calmer by joining the alliance, then so be it. Even without them, without Sweden and Finland, NATO is close to our country.”
“Should this enlargement of NATO happen, the length of its land borders with Russia will more than double. And we will have to strengthen these borders,” he added. “The Baltic region’s non-nuclear status will become a thing of the past, the group of land and naval forces in the northern sector will be seriously increased. No one is happy with it. Nor are the citizens of these two NATO candidate countries.”
Jun 27, 6:42 pm
Zelenskyy calls mall attack one of ‘the most defiant terrorist attack in European history’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lashed out against Russian forces in a recorded speech Monday hours after a missile struck a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, calling the attack “one of the most defiant terrorist attacks in European history.”
“Only totally insane terrorists, who should have no place on earth, can strike missiles at such an object. And this is not an off-target missile strike, this is a calculated Russian strike — exactly at this shopping mall,” Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president said the rescue and salvage efforts were still ongoing.
Ukraine’s Emergency Service reported that 15 people were killed and 59 were injured in the attack as of Monday evening.
“We must be aware that the losses may be significant,” Zelenskyy said.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Jun 27, 5:36 pm
G-7 leaders ‘condemn’ Russian military strike on mall
G-7 leaders released a statement condemning Russia’s missile strike on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, saying it constitutes a war crime and that President Vladimir Putin “and those responsible will be held to account.”
“We stand united with Ukraine in mourning the innocent victims of this brutal attack,” they said.
The summit began in Germany on Sunday with a heavy focus on the invasion of Ukraine, and the group announced more steps to try and stop Putin from funding his war.
“Today, we underlined our unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian aggression, an unjustified war of choice that has been raging for 124 days. We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian as well as military support for Ukraine, for as long as it takes. We will not rest until Russia ends its cruel and senseless war on Ukraine,” G-7 leaders said.
