The new Elvis Presley biopic Elvis is out today, and with it, a star-studded soundtrack featuring contributions from Jack White and Tame Impala.
White lends his voice to a rendition of the song “Power of My Love” alongside Elvis’ original vocals to create a new “duet,” and Tame Impala puts a remixed spin on the Elvis tune “Edge of Reality.”
The album also includes Måneskin‘s previously released rendition of “If I Can Dream.”
Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann, stars Austin Butler in the title role and Tom Hanks as his manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
After premiering his new solo song “Patient Number 9” featuring Jeff Beck earlier this morning, Ozzy Osbourne has now debuted the song’s video.
The clip, directed by famed comic book creator Todd McFarlane, finds the Prince of Darkness in a hospital slowly turning into a demon, cut with a fantastical cartoon adventure. At one point, cartoon Ozzy is about to once again bite the head off a bat, before an even bigger bat grabs him and takes revenge.
“Having worked with Ozzy in the past, I jumped at another opportunity to do so again…especially on the music side this time,” says McFarlane.
“In the harsh business called the music industry, any creative person who’s sustained a multi-decades career has shown the skill, talent and tenacity that will always garner my admiration,” he adds. “Ozzy has shown many of us creative folks that it’s indeed possible to make a living doing what you love for nearly an entire lifetime. Go, Ozzy!”
As previously reported, “Patient Number 9” is the lead single and title track off the next Ozzy solo album, the follow-up to 2020’s Ordinary Man. The Andrew Watt-produced record features a number of guests, including Black Sabbath‘s Tony Iommi, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Eric Clapton, Pearl Jam‘s Mike McCready, Black Label Society‘s Zakk Wylde, Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses, Jane’s Addiction‘s Chris Chaney and Metallica‘s Robert Trujillo.
Additionally, late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins makes a posthumous appearance.
Patient Number 9, the album, arrives September 9.
Imagine Dragons has premiered a new song called “Sharks,” which will appear on the band’s upcoming album, Mercury — Act 2.
The track is available now via digital outlets and is accompanied by a video showing Dan Reynolds and company channeling their inner Ocean’s Eleven as they pull a Las Vegas heist, though not to steal money. You can watch that now streaming on YouTube.
“With the ‘Sharks’ music video our goal was to represent our hometown in the light it deserves — a city of passion, entertainment and art,” Reynolds says. “Always awake and eccentric. Always an adventure to be had.”
“As a third generation Las Vegan, I love this city and owe our success to it,” he adds. “They have always championed us. ‘Sharks’ pays homage to the city we call home. Las Vegas.”
Mercury — Act 2 is the follow-up to last September’s Mercury — Act 1, which features the singles “Follow You,” “Wrecked” and the hit J.I.D collaboration, “Enemy.” The two albums will be released together in a single package on July 1.
Imagine Dragons is currently on tour in Europe. They’ll return stateside for a U.S. tour in August.
It’s been a while since Madonna has performed live in the U.S., but since it’s Pride Month, the longtime ally hit the stage last night at New York City’s Terminal 5 for a special event.
The event was hosted by the NFT platform World of Women, with whom Madonna has collaborated before. According to Billboard, she performed a remix of her hit “Hung Up” with female Dominican rapper Tokischa, with whom she then made out. She also performed with LGBTQ rapper Saucy Santana on a mash-up of her classic “Material Girl” and his song of the same name.
Billboard also reports that Madonna appeared on stage with famous drag queens — including Bob the Drag Queen and Violet Chachki — and her son David Banda. During her big finale, she performed “Celebration,” the title track of her 2009 compilation.
But Madonna wasn’t just celebrating Pride — the event also doubled as a record release party for Finally Enough Love, her dance remix compilation. The 16-track version of the package is out today; the full 50-track version comes out August 19, a few days after Madonna’s birthday.
You can see footage of Madonna’s rehearsals for last night’s event on her Instagram Story.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Friday ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade and the fundamental right to abortion that has been the law for almost 50 years.
The court ruled 6-3, in an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, who called Roe “egregiously wrong from the start.”
The court upheld a Mississippi law that bans all abortion past 15 weeks, with very few medical exceptions.
The court also overturned Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, two landmark decisions legalizing abortion nationwide.
Alito also wrote the bombshell draft opinion leaked to the public earlier this year. The three liberal justices dissented.
Alito wrote that the Constitution “does not confer a right to abortion,” stating it is ultimately up to the states to regulate abortion access.
“Abortion presents a profound moral question,” Alito wrote. “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. The Court overrules those decisions and returns that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”
In their dissent, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan lamented that millions of American women will lose a right because of the court’s decision.
“It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of,” their dissent reads. “A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs. An abortion restriction, the majority holds, is permissible whenever rational, the lowest level of scrutiny known to the law.”
The three justices also pushed back on the majority’s reasoning that each state can address abortion access as it pleases.
“That is cold comfort, of course, for the poor woman who cannot get the money to fly to a distant State for a procedure,” they wrote. “Above all others, women lacking financial resources will suffer from today’s decision.”
Since Roe v. Wade in 1973 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, the court has forbidden states from banning abortions prior to fetal viability outside the womb, roughly 24 weeks, according to medical experts.
Mississippi had argued that Roe and Casey were wrongly decided and that each state should be allowed to set its own policy.
Jackson Women’s Health, the state’s only remaining abortion clinic, argued that the high court’s protection of a woman’s right to choose abortion is clear, well-established precedent and should be respected.
After oral arguments in December, a majority of justices voted initially to side with Mississippi, according to a leaked first draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito published by Politico in early May and confirmed to be authentic by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Majorities of Americans have long supported upholding Roe v. Wade and oppose state bans on all abortions, according to ABC News/Washington Post polling.
But Americans appear more divided on the type of ban at issue in Mississippi. A Marquette University Law School poll late last year found 37% favored upholding a 15-week ban, with 32% opposed.
Mississippi’s sole clinic only performs abortions up to 16 weeks.
As the Supreme Court case was pending, several Republican-led states enacted unique laws that effectively circumvent constitutional protections for abortion.
Texas’ SB8 — a near-total ban on abortions — took force in September, deputizing everyday citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an illegal abortion. Oklahoma recently implemented a similar citizen-enforced measure that bans all abortions, with only exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that it could not intervene to block the state laws.
Twenty-six states are considered certain or likely to ban abortions following a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. Fourteen states plus Washington, D.C., have laws explicitly protecting access to abortion care.
The ruling is the Court’s most significant on abortion rights in years and the first for the current 6-justice conservative majority with Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Fans likely know Jimmie Allen as a country musician, but soon they might know him for his skills at the bowling alley, too. The singer is currently working on becoming a professional bowler, and he plans to try out for the Professional Bowlers Association in January.
“I actually move my schedule around, like, move shows around and stuff like that, to get into bowling tournaments,” he reveals in a Billboard video as one item in a list of five little-known facts about himself.
“Being a professional bowler is on my bucket list and something I’m wanting to do,” he adds.
That’s not the only sport Jimmie says he’d like to take up. “I wanna be a WWE professional wrestler,” he says. “And, like, tour and do matches and stuff. I wanna do that. That’s in there, as well.”
Jimmie might encounter a conflict in achieving that dream, though, since he’s not a huge fan of going to the gym. Still, he says he’d be willing to do things he doesn’t necessarily love in the name of achieving his goals.
“I’m a competitive person. So whatever needs to be done to get that job done, that’s what I’ll do. So if I need to get a little stronger, put on a little size, look bigger for camera, I’ll do that. Because it’s required of the job,” he reasons.
In the more short-term future, though, Jimmie’s taking another step toward country superstardom with the release of his third album, Tulip Drive, on Friday.
Another day, another wild accusation about The Flash star Ezra Miller.
According to Rolling Stone, the actor, who identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, is currently staying on his 96-acre property in Stamford, Vermont, with a mother and her three young children.
The father, like the 25-year-old mother, was not identified. However, he reportedly feared the situation is “unsafe.” Video provided to Rolling Stone allegedly showed “unattended guns strewn around the home,” and that “one of the children — a one-year-old — allegedly picked up a loose bullet and put it in her mouth.”
The 29-year-old actor is allegedly using marijuana heavily in front of the children, the magazine reports. Miller also is accused of cultivating cannabis on their farm without a license, according to Rolling Stone.
However, the mother of the children tells the magazine that Miller helped her and her kids flee Hilo, Hawaii, and a “violent and abusive” ex — something the children’s father denies.
The Rolling Stone report is the latest in a series of recent accusations and legal entanglements for Miller.
Earlier this month, South Dakota attorney and activist Chase Iron Eyes and his wife, Sara Jumping Eagle, filed court documents alleging that Miller has been “physically and emotionally abusing” their 18-year-old daughter, Tokata Iron Eyes, whom Miller met when she was 12 and Miller was 23. The Fantastic Beasts series star was also accused of “psychologically manipulating, physically intimidating, and endangering the safety and welfare” of the young woman, according to court documents obtained by Entertainment Weekly.
However, in an Instagram post, Tokata denied the claims, insisting in part that her “comrade” Ezra has simply helped her through a difficult time.
Miller was also arrested in Hawaii in March and April and charged, respectively, with disorderly conduct and harassment in one case, and second degree assault in the other.
(NEW YORK) — Dr. Deborah Birx, a former White House COVID response coordinator under then-President Donald Trump, told Congress on Thursday that Trump’s focus on the 2020 election got in the way of a strong COVID response in the winter of 2021.
Birx, who has written a book on her time working with the White House in the early days of the pandemic, spoke to the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis largely about what she said were the errors the Trump administration made and times she disagreed with its approach.
She told the committee that was told to delete recommendations of masks and social distancing in reports that went out to states’ governors and that those reports — once put out weekly — would only be provided if the states asked.
Birx said she thought the best approach would be complete transparency and to arm the states with all the data available
The former COVID coordinator and longtime public health official also said she put together a plan in September and October for how to go into the surge that she “knew was coming to the United States throughout that fall and winter of 2020 into 2021.”
MORE: ABC News Exclusive: Dr. Birx speaks to Trump disinfectant moment, says colleagues had resignation pact
She said she was given reason to believe that the plan would be used by the White House, but instead it never went anywhere.
“That strategy was never fully executed in all of its robust and comprehensive approach because the teams were never brought back together,” Birx testified.
“I believe it is because they were distracted by the post-election issues,” she said.
That fall and winter was the deadliest time of the pandemic in the US. More people died than at any other point in the pandemic to date.
Birx also said that she believes if Trump had followed her recommendations and data, lives would’ve been saved.
The misinformation circulating in the White House, Birx said, made it hard to act on plans.
“When you no longer agree on what is actually happening in the country and what needs to be done, and there’s not consensus on that, then you lose the ability to execute in the maximum efficient and effective way,” Birx said.
Going forward, Birx said the country still is not in a good place.
She argued that the Biden administration needs to be watching for new variants that could cause surges and launch quickly on proactively testing vulnerable people and prescribing Paxlovid, which can be lifesaving if given in the first five days of illness.
She also said the country shouldn’t overlook the toll that hospitalizations have taken on people, even as the country surpasses the tragic milestone of one million deaths.
“Hospitalizations in people over 70 is not benign. It’s not benign,” she said.
“I know everybody focuses on the deaths but I want to make it clear, many more Americans have suffered really significantly from being hospitalized and another whole group still has long COVID,” Birx said.
“And so you know, this isn’t trivial — this virus is not trivial, and should not just be immediately discarded as we’re doing fine. We are not doing fine yet.”
(NEW YORK) — Violence against abortion providers significantly rose in 2021, according to a report from the National Abortion Federation published Friday.
The report, which measures a variety of acts of violence and disruption, found the most significant increases were in stalking, blockades, hoax devices/suspicious packages, invasions and assault and battery, compared to 2020’s findings.
Vandalism and assault and battery continue to be the most common offenses, but other acts have seen major jumps, with stalking increasing 600% from 2020, according to the report.
Overall, the new data has found increased reported incidents of anti-abortion individuals “pushing, shoving, using pepper spray against, slapping, kicking, and physically fighting clinic escorts, staff and others outside of clinics.”
Melissa Fowler, chief program officer at National Abortion Federation, said that NAF found that abortion clinics are not facing peaceful protests, but rather a “coordinated campaign” that threatens abortion providers.
“It’s really important that people understand the trends… and also the people behind those numbers,” Fowler said. “We can’t sit back and let it be socially acceptable to harass abortion providers.”
The report also draws specific attention to the Jan. 6 insurrection, as NAF has found that many of those known to commit violence and disruption against abortion clinics have also been found to have been a part of the riots at the Capitol in early 2021.
Fowler told ABC News that it was important for the organization to include those details because they feel that it is important to make people aware of the overlap in activity by “extremist groups.”
Amanda Kifferly, vice president of abortion access and clinic security director of The Women’s Centers, told ABC News that while for many Americans the behavior of insurrectionists was shocking on Jan. 6, abortion providers like herself were familiar with it.
She said that she actually looked up one of the usual protestors at her clinic on Facebook and watched as he live streamed his participation in the Capitol attack.
“We were so familiar with the tactics that we saw. The bullying, the loud noises, the militia gear, the harassing language that was used,” she said. “They are pro-violence and the words that they were saying like ‘hang people’ was very familiar.”
Fowler said the connections between anti-abortion and white supremacy groups are not new and they’ve been noted since abortion was legalized in the 1970s.
Kifferly and Dalton Johnson, the CEO of Alabama Women’s Center, said that’ve had to work to have law enforcement officials, different security providers and deescalation tactics implemented to address the violence and disruption that their clinics face.
The report also found that the pandemic affected the type of violence and disruption against abortion providers, as well as how many incidents were actually reported.
At a Thursday press call, Fowler said that many of their member facilities struggled to stay open due to regulations from the government, as well as from staffing issues. The strain of the pandemic, Fowler said, also meant that providers were not as capable of recording all incidents of harassment.
Kifferly said that she and her clinic staff experienced this, as they were “exhausted and became under more scrutiny.” Specifically, Kifferly said she and her staff had difficulty proving they were essential workers during the pandemic.
Fowler, Kifferly and Dalton all said that they don’t believe that the anti-abortion protestors that they have encountered are able or willing to have respectful conversations about the issue of abortion.
NAF reports have found acts of violence and disruption not only committed at abortion clinic sites, but also at the homes, churches and schools of the children of abortion providers.
Fowler said that NAF’s priority continues to be the safety and well-being of their providers and their patients, and working to get patients the care that they need.
The NAF has been collecting data on incidents of violence and disruption against abortion providers since 1977, according to the release.
To do so, they collect monthly reports from their member facilities and allied organizations and conduct follow-up reports.
For the 2021 report, NAF received reports from 80% of their facility members, and suspect that there is underreporting in some areas, such as picketing, hate mail and calls, hate email, internet harassment, obstruction and trespassing.
(NEW YORK) — If you could give your child the gift of life, would you?
Pamela Bish, a Georgia mom of three, recently got the chance to do so and she immediately jumped at the opportunity. Her youngest son, Carter Bish, 2, needs a new kidney, and after multiple tests and processes, doctors finally gave her the green light to undergo the live organ donation.
Now, Pamela Bish and her son’s procedures are scheduled to go ahead on July 8.
“It’s not just about being a match. There’s other things that they have to consider,” Bish told Good Morning America.
“My vessels have to be a certain size. They had to make sure I had two kidneys. They had to make sure that I didn’t have any cysts on my kidneys. They had to make sure I don’t have high blood pressure. They have to make sure I’m not pre-diabetic,” she explained. “So there were all kinds of things that I had to go through in order to make sure that I, as a donor, could continue to be healthy and live a healthy life with only one kidney.”
She remembers the day she got the critical phone call telling her she was cleared.
“When I got that final call of, ‘I have good news. You have been approved,’ it was instant relief, and just instant peace and calm. And then, the excitement just kicked in,” Pamela Bish said.
Although Carter is only 2 years old, his health challenges began before he was even born.
“I went in for my 20-week ultrasound and the radiologist came in and they said that Carter, there was a lot of things wrong with him and he was not compatible with life, that he wouldn’t make it, he wouldn’t be able to live because I didn’t have much amniotic fluid,” Bish said. “[They said] his kidneys just looked awful. They looked just filled with cysts and a lot of fluid.”
It was devastating news for Pamela Bish and her husband, Dale Bish, who are both originally from Pittsburgh but moved to Dacula, Georgia, partway through her pregnancy with Carter. They decided to get a second opinion from doctors at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, where they were told it appeared that Carter had a urinary blockage.
“Throughout all those weeks, between weeks 20 and 30, I would have some fluid and then it would go down and Hopkins just said they wouldn’t recommend any other interventions because he does have a little bit of fluid and if he has enough to just breathe it in and develop his lungs enough, that he could make it,” Pamela Bish said.
“He would likely need dialysis and he would likely need a transplant down the road. But we just had to wait and see, and that was probably the most difficult part, carrying him knowing that we weren’t sure if we were going to have a baby to bring home or not.”
Against the odds, Carter did make it, and shortly after he was born, he was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Scottish Rite Hospital in Atlanta, where he was put on a ventilator and received various treatments before he could be placed on peritoneal dialysis, a type of treatment for kidney failure, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
Pamela Bish estimates that her son has had at least 11 surgeries, and multiple setbacks and different health issues, but her little boy has fought through them all. She describes Carter as a happy child who loves baseball and was, naturally, one for Halloween this past October.
Last year, Carter’s kidneys also improved to the point where he could even be removed from dialysis.
“He made it a year without dialysis treatment and maintaining his levels. But then things just started to get bad again. His labs started to look not so good,” Pamela Bish explained. “He could create urine but his urine was not good urine, so it wasn’t clearing his body of all the toxins.”
Carter started undergoing dialysis again but would eventually need a transplant. He also had to recover from hip surgery before he would be well enough to receive a kidney.
Now, his mother is looking forward to being the lifeline he needs and giving him a shot at what she hopes is a long life ahead of him.
“I want him to know that during the times in his life that people were telling him that his life wasn’t worth saving or keeping, that his family and his friends and the people around him never believed that for one minute,” Pamela Bish said. “They all believed that his life was worth it and that he would be OK.”
“If you would see him today, you would not know a thing is wrong with him. He is the most adorable, cutest, sweetest little guy. He never stops talking. He has won the hearts of everyone around him,” she added.
